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Full-Text Articles in Law

Texas Advance Directives Act: Nearly A Model Dispute Resolution Mechanism For Intractable Medical Futility Conflicts, Thaddeus Pope Jan 2016

Texas Advance Directives Act: Nearly A Model Dispute Resolution Mechanism For Intractable Medical Futility Conflicts, Thaddeus Pope

Faculty Scholarship

Increasingly, clinicians and commentators have been calling for the establishment of special adjudicatory dispute resolution mechanisms to resolve intractable medical futility disputes. As a leading model to follow, policymakers both around the United States and around the world have been looking to the conflict resolution provisions in the 1999 Texas Advance Directives Act (‘TADA’). In this article, I provide a complete and thorough review of the purpose, history, and operation of TADA. I conclude that TADA is a commendable attempt to balance the competing goals of efficiency and fairness in the resolution of these time-sensitive life-and-death conflicts. But TADA is …


Elections, Ideology, And Turnover In The U.S. Federal Government, Alexander D. Bolton, John De Figueiredo, David E. Lewis Jan 2016

Elections, Ideology, And Turnover In The U.S. Federal Government, Alexander D. Bolton, John De Figueiredo, David E. Lewis

Faculty Scholarship

A defining feature of public sector employment is the regular change in elected leadership. Yet, we know little about how elections influence public sector careers. We describe how elections alter policy outputs and disrupt the influence of civil servants over agency decisions. These changes shape the career choices of employees motivated by policy, influence, and wages. Using new Office of Personnel Management data on the careers of millions of federal employees between 1988 and 2011, we evaluate how elections influence employee turnover decisions. We find that presidential elections increase departure rates of career senior employees, particularly in agencies with divergent …


Quitting In Protest: A Theory Of Presidential Policy Making And Agency Response, Charles M. Cameron, John M. De Figueiredo, David E. Lewis Jan 2015

Quitting In Protest: A Theory Of Presidential Policy Making And Agency Response, Charles M. Cameron, John M. De Figueiredo, David E. Lewis

Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the effects of centralized presidential policy-making, implemented through unilateral executive action, on the willingness of bureaucrats to exert effort and stay in the government. Extending models in organizational economics, we show that policy initiative by the president is a substitute for initiative by civil servants. Yet, total effort is enhanced when both work. Presidential centralization of policy often impels policy-oriented bureaucrats ("zealots") to quit rather than implement presidential policies they dislike. Those most likely to quit are a range of moderate bureaucrats. More extreme bureaucrats may be willing to wait out an opposition president in the hope …


Institutional Preconditions For Policy Success, Blake Hudson Jan 2014

Institutional Preconditions For Policy Success, Blake Hudson

Journal Articles

Policy failures receive much attention from the public and from policy makers adjusting policy in response to failure. Yet, lessons learned from policy failures are necessarily ex post observations. Not only has the policy failed to achieve its purposes, but a great deal of political, institutional, temporal, and economic capital has been wasted. A new body of literature on policy success undertakes ex ante analysis of successful policy designs, instrument choices, and other policy-making variables to establish a framework for more effective policy making. Though policy success may be inhibited by a variety of procedural, programmatic, or political factors, institutional …


Overcoming Legislative Gridlock In The U.S. Congress: How Procedural Rules Affect Legislative Obstructionism, Molly Jackman Oct 2013

Overcoming Legislative Gridlock In The U.S. Congress: How Procedural Rules Affect Legislative Obstructionism, Molly Jackman

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

More than 90 percent of bills introduced in the U.S. House never make it to a floor vote, and far fewer are enacted into law. Since legislative gridlock is much more common than legislative action, in order to understand policy outcomes, it is critical to know why bills are obstructed. Gridlock occurs when a legislator (or group of legislators) wants to block a bill, and has the procedural right to do so. Using new data on the procedural rules in the U.S. states, this presentation will identify the chambers in which legislators can block bills from the legislative agenda. Then, …


Innovation, Inequality, And The Commercialization Of Academic Research, Walter Valdivia Sep 2013

Innovation, Inequality, And The Commercialization Of Academic Research, Walter Valdivia

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

Patent policy is rarely debated in relation to its distributive consequences. In particular, the Bayh-Dole Act has been discussed in terms of its effects on the pace of innovation or the organization of science. However, this lecture re-assesses this policy from the perspective of a fair distribution of resources, both those committed to and those created by research-based innovation. Specifically, examining the management of university’s intellectual property, Valdivia will identify the institutional arrangements that reinforce a very asymmetric distribution of political and economic resources among universities and then characterize subtle but important links between these inequalities and the social distribution …


The Dual Path Initiative Framework, Elizabeth Garrett, Mathew D. Mccubbins Jan 2007

The Dual Path Initiative Framework, Elizabeth Garrett, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Courts, Congress, And Public Policy, Part Ii: The Impact Of The Reapportionment Revolution On Congress And State Legislatures, Jeffrey R. Lax, Mathew D. Mccubbins Jan 2006

Courts, Congress, And Public Policy, Part Ii: The Impact Of The Reapportionment Revolution On Congress And State Legislatures, Jeffrey R. Lax, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Conditions For Judicial Independence, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Roger Noll, Barry R. Weingast Jan 2006

Conditions For Judicial Independence, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Roger Noll, Barry R. Weingast

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Social Choice, Crypto-Initiaives, And Policymaking By Direct Democracy, Thad Kousser, Mathew D. Mccubbins Jan 2005

Social Choice, Crypto-Initiaives, And Policymaking By Direct Democracy, Thad Kousser, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


When Does Government Limit The Impact Of Voter Initiatives?, Elisabeth R. Gerber Jan 2004

When Does Government Limit The Impact Of Voter Initiatives?, Elisabeth R. Gerber

Faculty Scholarship

Citizens use the initiative process to make new laws. Many winning initiatives, however, are altered or ignored after Election Day. We examine why this is, paying particular attention to several widely-ignored properties of the post-election phase of the initiative process. One such property is the fact that initiative implementation can require numerous governmental actors to comply with an initiative’s policy instructions. Knowing such properties, the question then becomes: When do governmental actors comply with winning initiatives? We clarify when compliance is full, partial, or not at all. Our findings provide a template for scholars and observers to better distinguish cases …


Risk Realization, Emotion, And Policy Making, Chris Guthrie Jan 2004

Risk Realization, Emotion, And Policy Making, Chris Guthrie

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In their study of terrorism and SARS, Professor Feigenson and his colleagues report "significant positive correlations between people's risk perceptions and their negative affect." In their review of the judgment and decision-making literature, Professor Slovic and his colleagues document the interplay between reason and emotion in assessing risk. And in the context of a soldier's concerns for himself and his family, Professor Moran provides a powerful narrative of fear. But what happens when such threats are actually realized? Do we accurately predict the emotional impact of such events? Or are there meaningful and predictable differences between the feelings we forecast …


Politcs And The Courts: A Positive Theory Of Judicial Doctrine And The Rule Of Law, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Roger G. Noll, Barry R. Weingast Jan 1995

Politcs And The Courts: A Positive Theory Of Judicial Doctrine And The Rule Of Law, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Roger G. Noll, Barry R. Weingast

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Mortality Effects Of Regulatory Costs And Policy Evaluation Criteria, W. Kip Viscusi Jan 1994

Mortality Effects Of Regulatory Costs And Policy Evaluation Criteria, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Risk regulations directly reduce risks, but they may produce offsetting risk increases. Regulated risks generate a substitution effect, as individuals' risk-averting actions will diminish. Recognition of these effects alters benefit-cost criteria and the value-of-life estimates pertinent to policy analysis. Particularly expensive risk regulations may be counterproductive. The expenditure level that will lead to the loss of one statistical life equals the value of life divided by the marginal propensity to spend on health. Regulations with a cost of $30 million to $70 million per life saved will, on balance, have a net adverse effect on mortality because of these linkages.


Bonding, Structure And The Stability Of Political Parties: Party Government In The House, Gary W. Cox, Mathew D. Mccubbins Jan 1994

Bonding, Structure And The Stability Of Political Parties: Party Government In The House, Gary W. Cox, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

The public policy benefits that parties-deliver are allocated by democratic procedures that devolve ultimately to majority rule. Majority-rule decision making, however, does not lead to consistent policy choices; it is "unstable." In this paper, we argue that institutions - and thereby policy coalitions -- can be stabilized by extra-legislative organization. The rules of the Democratic Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives dictate that a requirement for continued membership is support on the floor of Caucus decisions for a variety of key structural matters. Because membership in the majority party’s caucus is valuable, it constitutes a bond, the posting of …


A Theory Of Political Control And Agency Discretion, Randall L. Calvert, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Barry R. Weingast Jan 1989

A Theory Of Political Control And Agency Discretion, Randall L. Calvert, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Barry R. Weingast

Faculty Scholarship

A major issue in the study of American politics is the extent to which electoral discipline also constrains bureaucrats. In practice, executive agencies operate with considerable independence from elected officials. However,the entire process of policy execution is a game among legislators.the chief executive. and bureaucratic agents. It includes the initial delegation of authority, the choice of policy alternatives,and opportunities for oversight and control. A simple model of this process demonstrates an important distinction between bureaucratic authority and bureaucratic discretion. Indeed.in its simplest form, the model predicts a world in which bureaucrats are the sole active participants in policymaking, but in …