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2009

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Articles 31 - 60 of 60

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Regulation Of Soveriegn Wealth Funds: The Virtues Of Going Slow, Amanda M. Rose, Richard A. Epstein Jun 2009

The Regulation Of Soveriegn Wealth Funds: The Virtues Of Going Slow, Amanda M. Rose, Richard A. Epstein

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Any symposium on private-equity firms and the going private phenomenon would be incomplete without discussion of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs). These government-owned investment vehicles have and will continue to play an important role in the going private phenomenon. SWFs have not only helped fuel that phenomenon through their participation as limited partners in private-equity funds and hedge funds, but their massive capital infusions into ailing financial institutions and private-equity firms in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis may, in a very real sense, save it. It is not hyperbolic to suggest that the future of private equity—including the going …


Trade 2.0, Anupam Chander Jun 2009

Trade 2.0, Anupam Chander

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


Welfare As Happiness, Jonathan Masur, Christopher Buccafusco, John Bronsteen Jun 2009

Welfare As Happiness, Jonathan Masur, Christopher Buccafusco, John Bronsteen

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


Willpower And Legal Policy, Lee Anne Fennell Jun 2009

Willpower And Legal Policy, Lee Anne Fennell

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


A Criminal Law Conversation, Bernard E. Harcourt, Alon Harel, Ken Levy, Michael O'Hear, Alice Ristroph Jun 2009

A Criminal Law Conversation, Bernard E. Harcourt, Alon Harel, Ken Levy, Michael O'Hear, Alice Ristroph

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


Anti-Bankruptcy, Robert K. Rasmussen, Douglas G. Baird Jun 2009

Anti-Bankruptcy, Robert K. Rasmussen, Douglas G. Baird

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

In large Chapter 11 cases, the prototypical creditor is no longer a small player holding a claim much like everyone else's, but rather a distressed debt professional advancing her own agenda. Secured creditors are more pervasive and enjoy much more control than they had even a decade ago. Moreover, financial innovation has dramatically increased the complexity of each investor's position. As a result of these and other changes, the legal system faces today a challenge that is much like assembling a city block that has been broken up into many parcels. There exists an anti-commons problem, a world in which …


Corporate Law’S Distributive Design, Anupam Chander Jun 2009

Corporate Law’S Distributive Design, Anupam Chander

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


Divide And Conquer, Eric A. Posner, Kathryn E. Spier, Adrian Vermeule Jun 2009

Divide And Conquer, Eric A. Posner, Kathryn E. Spier, Adrian Vermeule

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


How To Undermine Tax Increment Financing: The Lessons Of Prologis V. City Of Chicago, Richard A. Epstein Jun 2009

How To Undermine Tax Increment Financing: The Lessons Of Prologis V. City Of Chicago, Richard A. Epstein

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

This article examines the level of appropriate level of constitutional protection against outside governments that condemn property located within a given local municipality that use tax increment financing to fund local improvements The standard TIF arrangement does not provide the TIF lenders with liens against any particular asset, because to do so would be to abandon the tax exempt status of the municipal bonds that are issued. Yet these agreements guarantee that the local government that issued the bonds will take no steps to compromise their repayment from (incremental) tax dollars. These protections allow TIF bonds to trade in ordinary …


Inferring The Winning Party In The Supreme Court From The Pattern Of Questioning At Oral Argument, Lee Epstein, William M. Landes, Richard A. Posner Jun 2009

Inferring The Winning Party In The Supreme Court From The Pattern Of Questioning At Oral Argument, Lee Epstein, William M. Landes, Richard A. Posner

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Chief Justice John Roberts, and others, have noticed that the lawyer in an oral argument in the Supreme Court who is asked more questions than his opponent is likely to lose the case. This paper provides rigorous statistical tests of that hypothesis and of the related hypothesis that the number of words per question asked, as distinct from just the number of questions asked, also predicts the outcome of the case. We explore the theoretical basis for these hypotheses. Our analysis casts light on competing theories of judicial behavior, which we call the "legalistic" and the "realistic." In the former, …


Neoliberal Penality: A Brief Genealogy, Bernard E. Harcourt Jun 2009

Neoliberal Penality: A Brief Genealogy, Bernard E. Harcourt

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


Online Advertising, Identity And Privacy, Randal C. Picker Jun 2009

Online Advertising, Identity And Privacy, Randal C. Picker

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


The Mediated Book, Randal C. Picker May 2009

The Mediated Book, Randal C. Picker

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


The Google Book Search Settlement: A New Orphan-Works Monopoly?, Randal C. Picker Apr 2009

The Google Book Search Settlement: A New Orphan-Works Monopoly?, Randal C. Picker

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


The Housing Crisis And Bankruptcy Reform: The Prepackaged Chapter 13 Approach, Eric A. Posner, Luigi Zingales Apr 2009

The Housing Crisis And Bankruptcy Reform: The Prepackaged Chapter 13 Approach, Eric A. Posner, Luigi Zingales

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

The housing crisis threatens to destroy hundreds of billions of dollars of value by causing homeowners with negative equity to walk away from their houses. A house in foreclosure is worth 30 to 50 percent less than a house that a homeowner either retains or sells on the market, and a foreclosed house damages neighboring property values as well. We advocate a reform of Chapter 13 that would allow homeowners to strip down the value of their mortgages in a prepackaged bankruptcy. Such a plan would give homeowners an incentive to keep or resell their homes, thus reducing the market …


The Rights Of Migrants, Eric A. Posner, Adam B. Cox Apr 2009

The Rights Of Migrants, Eric A. Posner, Adam B. Cox

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Why do states provide migrants rights associated with citizenship? Existing accounts typically answer this question in terms of obligation—of a duty on the part of states to confer citizenship. Moreover, scholars tend to lump together the bundle of rights conventionally associated with citizenship when they answer this question. In contrast, this Article disaggregates the rights associated with citizenship, asks what both states and migrants want, and inquires into how the suite of rights associated with citizenship might advance those interests. States want to encourage migrants to enter their territory and to make country-specific investments, but have an interest in being …


Are Judges Overpaid? A Skeptical Repsonse To The Judicial Salary Debate, Eric A. Posner, G. Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi Apr 2009

Are Judges Overpaid? A Skeptical Repsonse To The Judicial Salary Debate, Eric A. Posner, G. Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

The public debate over the need to raise judicial salaries has been one-sided. Sentiment appears to be that judges are underpaid. But neither theory nor evidence provides much support for this view. The primary argument being made in favor of a pay increase is that it will raise the quality of judging. Theory suggests that increasing judicial salaries will improve judicial performance only if judges can be sanctioned for performing inadequately or if the appointments process reliably screens out low-ability candidates. However, federal judges and many state judges cannot be sanctioned, and the reliability of screening processes is open to …


Marking To Market: Can Accounting Rules Shake The Foundations Of Capitalism?, M. Todd Henderson, Richard A. Epstein Apr 2009

Marking To Market: Can Accounting Rules Shake The Foundations Of Capitalism?, M. Todd Henderson, Richard A. Epstein

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Mark-to-market accounting helps create asset bubbles and exacerbate their negative collateral consequences when they burst. It does the latter by forcing the hand of counterparties to demand collateral even when it is inefficient to do so. Watchful waiting and inaction is often the more efficient course of action. Yet often this is the road not taken, out of fear of litigation and regulatory sanctions. Nonetheless, as a business matter, forbearance on foreclosure may well make sense if the party is optimistic about future values and a collateral call would generate assets sales that, under present mark-to-market rules, would negatively impact …


The Nanny Corporation And The Market For Paternalism, M. Todd Henderson Feb 2009

The Nanny Corporation And The Market For Paternalism, M. Todd Henderson

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


The Right To Abandon, Lior Strahilevitz Feb 2009

The Right To Abandon, Lior Strahilevitz

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

The common law prohibits the abandonment of real property. Perhaps it is surprising, therefore, that the following are true: (1) The common law generally permits the abandonment of chattel property; (2) The common law promotes the transfer of real property via adverse possession; and (3) the civil law permits the abandonment of real property. Because the literature on abandonment is disappointingly sparse, these three contrasts have escaped sustained scholarly analysis and criticism. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the law of abandonment. After engaging in such an analysis, the paper finds that the common law’s flat prohibition …


Commons, Anticommons, Semicommons, Lee Anne Fennell Feb 2009

Commons, Anticommons, Semicommons, Lee Anne Fennell

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


Gun Control After Heller: Threats And Sideshows From A Social Welfare Perspective, Adam M. Samaha, Philip K. Cook, Jens Ludwig Feb 2009

Gun Control After Heller: Threats And Sideshows From A Social Welfare Perspective, Adam M. Samaha, Philip K. Cook, Jens Ludwig

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

What will happen after Heller? We know that the Supreme Court will no longer tolerate comprehensive federal prohibitions on home handgun possession by some class of trustworthy homeowners for the purpose of, and perhaps only at the time of, self-defense. But the judiciary could push further, if nothing else by incorporating Heller’s holding into the Fourteenth Amendment and enforcing it against states and municipalities. In fact, the majority opinion offered little guidance for future cases. It presented neither a purely originalist method of constitutional interpretation nor a constraining doctrinal framework for evaluating other regulation—even while it gratuitously suggested that much …


Immigration Law's Organizing Principles, Adam B. Cox Feb 2009

Immigration Law's Organizing Principles, Adam B. Cox

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Immigration law and scholarship are pervasively organized around the principle that rules for selecting immigrants are (and should be) fundamentally different from rules that regulate the lives of immigrants outside the selection context. Both courts and commentators generally conclude that the government should have considerably more leeway to adopt whatever selection rules it sees fit. Consequently, the selection/regulation dichotomy shapes the central debates in immigration law—including debates about the legality and legitimacy of guest worker programs, America's criminal deportation system, and restrictions on immigrant access to public benefits. This Article argues that this central organizing principle is misguided: legal rules …


The Case Against The Employee Free Choice Act, Richard A. Epstein Jan 2009

The Case Against The Employee Free Choice Act, Richard A. Epstein

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


The Design Of A Carbon Tax, Gilbert E. Metcalf, David A. Weisbach Jan 2009

The Design Of A Carbon Tax, Gilbert E. Metcalf, David A. Weisbach

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

We consider the design of a tax on greenhouse gas emissions for a developed country such as the United States. We consider three sets of issues: the optimal tax base, issues relating to the rate (including the use of the revenues and rate changes over time) and trade. We show that a well-designed carbon tax can capture about 80% of U.S. emissions by taxing fewer than 3,000 taxpayers and up to almost 90% with a modest additional cost. We recommend full or partial delegation of rate setting authority to an agency to ensure that rates reflect new information about the …


Two Visions Of Corporate Law, M. Todd Henderson Jan 2009

Two Visions Of Corporate Law, M. Todd Henderson

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


Ambiguous Statutes, Saul Levmore Jan 2009

Ambiguous Statutes, Saul Levmore

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Judge Frank Easterbrook is known for insisting that legislative intent is a misconception, bordering on oxymoron. He has also advanced the idea that legislative bargains should be upheld by courts and that where a legislature leaves a "gap," courts should be non-activis rather than eager gap-fillers. Still, there are many cases where legislation leaves ambiguities. I suggest that the cause of an ambiguity has some bearing on the best way for a judge to resolve it. Easterbrook decisions, including an Equal Pay Act case, where (unequal) wages were based on prior compensation, are used to reveal various strategies for dealing …


An Information Theory Of Willful Breach, Oren Bar-Gill, Omri Ben-Shahar Jan 2009

An Information Theory Of Willful Breach, Oren Bar-Gill, Omri Ben-Shahar

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Should willful breach be sanctioned more severely than inadvertent breach? Strikingly, there is sharp disagreement on this matter within American legal doctrine, in legal theory, and in comparative law. Within law-and-economics, the standard answer is "no"—breach should be subject to strict liability. Fault should not raise the magnitude of liability in the same way that no-fault does not immune the breaching party from liability. In this paper, we develop an alternative law-and-economics account, which justifies super-compensatory damages for willful breach. Willful breach, we argue, reveals information about the “true nature” of the breaching party—that he is more likely than average …


Public Choice And Constitutional Design, Tom Ginsburg Jan 2009

Public Choice And Constitutional Design, Tom Ginsburg

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

This chapter reviews the literature on public choice theory and constitutional design, focusing in particular on the sub-discipline of constitutional political economy. The basic framework of constitutional political economy has been in place for several decades and has produced some important insights into particular institutions. Other institutions, however, have been ignored, and there is a relatively small amount of empirical work testing the propositions. The chapter summarizes the work to date and identifies areas for more attention in the future. The chapter first reviews the core assumption that constitutional politics are really different than ordinary politics, and the corollary that …


Responsibility For Climate Change, By The Numbers, David A. Weisbach Jan 2009

Responsibility For Climate Change, By The Numbers, David A. Weisbach

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

This paper examines the data on responsibility for climate change due to past emissions. It addresses two aspects of responsibility. First it shows that the data present a mixed picture. By some measures, developed or wealthy countries are responsible for most past emissions while on other means, responsibility is spread widely with poor countries responsible for a majority of emissions. The differences in the measurements are due two factors: whether the data uses a comprehensive measure of emissions and the extent to which the data is aggregated into regions. The more comprehensive the measure and the less aggregation, the more …