Law Commons^™

Political Risk Allocation In Egyptian Ppp Projects, Yousef Mohamed Al Amly Llm

Yousef Mohamed Al Amly LLM

Egypt has been recently suffering from several political changes since the revolution of the 25th of January and that has been jeopardizing the political stability required to encourage Investors to invest in financing infrastructures that is deemed to be crucial to help in the prosperity and welfare of the Egyptians. Therefore defining the types of political risks and efficiently allocating them is considered as one of the main keys to encourage more Investors to bid for the future coming PPP projects.

From Coase To Cooter: The Criticisms To Pigou’S Ideas, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

The aim of this paper is at discovering the most profound divergences between Coase and Pigou. Coase is well known for his theorem, but in his article ”The Problem of social Cost” he wants to point all the convincing criticisms to Pigou way of reasoning or, it is probably more correct to say, to Pigou’s oral tradition. I have found at least four criticisms. The last one, that states that it is impossible to have a mechanism of internalization of all social costs , is probably the least appealing but that one that has the strongest roots. I have also …

Enfoques Teóricos De Las Reglas Por Defecto En El Derecho De Contratos: Complementariedades, Coincidencias Y Contradicciones, Daniel Monroy

Daniel A Monroy C

El artículo muestra una lectura crítica en lo que respecta a la noción, las funciones y el diseño de las reglas por defecto en el derecho de contratos a partir de tres enfoques teóricos a saber: la perspectiva jurídica tradicional; la visión del Análisis Económico del Derecho (AED) en su versión clásica y; el enfoque del denominado behavioral law and economics (BL&E). El documento destaca con particular atención que en lo correspondiente a la noción y las funciones de las reglas por defecto en el derecho de contratos, existe un alto nivel de coherencia entre la perspectiva jurídica tradicional por …

Taking Outcomes Seriously, Daphna Lewinsohn-Zamir

Daphna Lewinsohn-Zamir

The goal of economic efficiency is to promote best outcomes by maximizing the satisfaction of people’s preferences. Given the crucial role of outcomes in efficiency analysis, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the question of what an outcome actually is. Law-and-economics scholars typically disregard this issue, implicitly adopting the narrowest possible definition of outcome, namely end-results in terms of wealth. Furthermore, no attempt has been made to examine the fundamental question of what notion of outcomes individuals actually embrace.

This Article aims to fill this void by presenting an experimental study of perceptions of outcomes, conducted with both laypersons …

Perfecting Criminal Markets, David Jaros

All Faculty Scholarship

From illicit drugs to human smuggling to prostitution, legislators may actually be perfecting the very criminal markets they seek to destroy. Criminal laws often create new dangers and new criminal opportunities. Criminalizing drugs creates the opportunity to sell fake drugs. Raising the penalties for illegal immigration increases the risk that smugglers will rely on dangerous methods that can injure or kill their human cargo. Banning prostitution increases the underground spread of sexually transmitted disease. Lawmakers traditionally respond to these “second order” problems in predictable fashion — with a new wave of criminalization that imposes additional penalties on fake drug dealers, …

Contracting In The Modern World, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

In this paper we try explore some of the basic features of mass contracting. In our opinion, there are basically four characteristics of mass contracting: the reduced negotiations, the dissemination of standard form contracts, the presence of abusive clauses, and the recapitulation of the contract and its execution in a single act of stipulation. a) The reduction in negotiations is the result first of all of the costs that this activity requires and of the costs required to manage personalised contracts; secondly, this reduction is the consequence of the greater advantage of mass-produced goods compared to personalised goods; ) The …

Dear Sec: Please Don't Abdicate Your Jobs Act Responsibility To Make Forthcoming "Regulation A+" Exemption From Registration Available To Small Businesses, Rutheford B. Campbell Jr.

Rutheford B Campbell Jr.

Title IV of the Jobs Act amends Section 3(b) of the Securities Act of 1933 by adding a new Section 3(b)(2). This new statute requires the Commission to adopt regulations (“Section 3(b)(2) Regulations”) that provide an exemption from registration for offerings of up to $50 million. The anticipated Section 3(b)(2) Regulations are often referred to as “Regulation A+”. The name used for Title IV of the Jobs Act – “Small Company Capital Formation” – indicates that the purpose of the legislation is to provide small businesses an efficient access external capital. The provisions of Title IV also suggest Regulation A …

The Litigation Finance Contract, Maya Steinitz

Faculty Scholarship

Litigation funding-for-profit, nonrecourse funding of a litigation by a nonparty-is a new and rapidly developing industry. It has been described as one of the "biggest and most influential trends in civil justice" today by RAND, the New York Times, and others. Despite the importance and growth of the industry, there is a complete absence of information about or discussion of litigation finance contracting, even though all the promises and pitfalls of litigation funding stem from the relationships those contracts establish and organize. Further, the literature and case law pertaining to litigation funding have evolved from an analogy between litigation funding …

Standard Contract Clauses As Public Goods. A New Way Of Reasoning, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

The aim of this work is to show how it is possible to identify market failures other than those traditionally identified by lawyers and law and economics scholars to justify the mandatory provisions of contracts between professionals and consumers and the equally mandatory provisions governing the abuse of economic dependency. This is a new approach that can be extended to other provisions and appears to rest on fairly solid microeconomic foundations. There is no doubt, however, that many criticisms can be leveled against it. Very briefly, I shall argue that the production of clauses characterized by being rather vague, indeterminate …

A Paradox In Employment: The Contradiction That Exists Between Immigration Laws And Outsourcing Practices, And Its Impact On The Legal And Illegal Minority Working Classes, Mary O'Sullivan

Mary T O'Sullivan

The drastic distinctions between the United States’ immigration and outsourcing policies have created a system where American companies are able to send unlimited jobs overseas, yet, have very restricted ability to bring workers to domestic offices and factories. Restrictive immigration policies seek to protect American jobs, while liberal outsourcing regulations permit, and encourage, employers to send jobs outside of the United States. As a result, the United States’ outsourcing policy sabotages the purpose of American immigration laws. The uncertainty of the contradiction between immigration and outsourcing policy may be the cause of unusually high unemployment numbers, particularly in the minority …

Organizational Standards Of Care For Tackling Wrongdoings, Klaus Heine, Kateryna Grabovets

Kateryna Grabovets

Organizational misconduct has two generic sources: individual wrongdoings and coordination failures. The analysis of misconduct in organizations focuses mainly on individual wrongdoings. This paper aims at shedding more light on coordination failures as a separate trigger of organizational wrongdoing. We propose a framework which aligns insights from law and economics and organizational science to improve organizational designs with regard to error management. A main finding is that a risky activity will be associated with a steeper hierarchy than activities with a low risk profile. But the organizational design depends on other variables as well; for example, whether an innovative activity …

Providing A Foundation For Wealth For Wealth Creation And Development In Africa: The Role Of The Rule Of Law, John Mukum Mbaku

JOHN MUKUM MBAKU

PROVIDING A FOUNDATION FOR WEALTH CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA: THE ROLE OF THE RULE OF LAW JOHN MUKUM MBAKU ABSTRACT This paper examines the struggle in Africa to alleviate and eventually eradicate poverty. It is argued that the most effective way for African countries to deal with poverty is to create wealth. Unfortunately, these countries have not been able to create the wealth that they need to confront poverty. This is due primarily to the fact that since independence, these countries have not been able to undertake democratic institutional reforms to create and adopt institutional arrangements that guarantee and …

Property And Republicanism In The Northwest Ordinance, Matthew J. Festa

Matthew J. Festa

This Article shows that individual property rights held a central place in the republican ideology of the founding era by examining the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Between the two predominant strains of founding-era political ideology—liberalism and republicanism—the conventional view holds that individual property rights were central to Lockean liberalism, but not to the republican political tradition, where property is thought to have played more of a communitarian role as part of promoting civic virtue and the common good. Republicanism has been invoked in modern debates, and its emphases are present in current ideas such as the important new theory of …

Requiting The Interest On The Float Of Wages, Employment Taxes And Other Employee Funds Collected And Withheld At The Source: The Internal Revenue Code Of 1986 Illuminated, Betty Barber

Betty Barber

REQUITING INTEREST ON THE FLOAT OF WAGES, EMPLOYMENT TAXES AND OTHER EMPLOYEE FUNDS COLLECTED AND WITHHELD AT THE SOURCE: THE INTERNAL REVENUE CODE OF 1986 ILLUMINATED Abstract The collection and withholding of employment taxes has achieved the status of a business model that capitalizes the opportunity value of the withheld funds. Rightful disposition of the interest accruing on employment taxes has eluded reasoned public discussion, which is surprising given the magnitude of this resource and its full potential. The Internal Revenue Code of 1986 designates the United States as beneficiary of withheld income taxes, Social Security and Medicare. The author …

Eminently Reasonable, David J. Reiss

David J Reiss

Local governments across the country are considering an innovative use of eminent domain. They propose to condemn underwater mortgages (those that exceed the fair-market value of the home) in their communities and restructure them so that home­owners can afford their payments and so that the new mortgage is for less than the fair market value of the property. If this proposal is implemented, the local government will pay the owner of mortgages of "underwater" homes the fair market value for the mortgages. The local government will then restructure each mortgage by reducing the principal amount owed to be in line …

El Incumplimiento Eficiente: ¿Es Justo Y Necesario?, Renzo E. Saavedra Velazco

Renzo E. Saavedra Velazco

Se compartió la mesa con el profesor Rubén Mendez, en la presentación se debatió acerca de cómo los presupuestos básicos del incumplimiento eficiente no pueden presentarse en la realidad. En síntesis, se conversó sobre los obstáculos jurídicos y económicos que enfrenta esta figura del AED.

El Homo Economicus Y La Libertad De Contratación, Renzo E. Saavedra Velazco

Renzo E. Saavedra Velazco

Se compartió la mesa con el profesor Juan José Martínez, en la presentación se debatió acerco del rol que cumple el presupuesto de racionalidad en el modelo standard del análisis económico del Derecho y las acotaciones del Behavioral Law and Economics.

Si Algo Puede Salir Mal... Saldrá Mal (Y En El Peor Momento Posible): Una Rápida Revisión Ius-Económica A La Imposibilidad Contractual, Renzo E. Saavedra Velazco

Renzo E. Saavedra Velazco

En la presente nota se desea subrayar algunas características económicas y jurídicas de figuras que sirven como justificación para el incumplimiento contractual, tales como la imposibilidad y la excesiva onerosidad.

Comment On The Use Of Eminent Domain To Restructure Performing Loans, David J. Reiss

David J Reiss

There has been a lot of fear-mongering by financial industry trade groups over the widespread use of eminent domain to residential mortgages. While there may be legitimate business reasons to oppose its use, its inconsistency with Takings jurisprudence should not be one of them. To date, the federal government’s responses to the current crisis in the housing markets have been at cross purposes, half-hearted and self-defeating. So it is not surprising that local governments are attempting to fashion solutions to the problem with the tools at their disposal. Courts should, and likely will, give these democratically-implemented and constitutionally-sound solutions a …

Ties That Bind: The Irrelevancy And Distraction Of Doma, Deirdre Bowen

Deirdre M Bowen

This article offers the only empirical analysis to date of national data evaluating the claim that DOMAs preserve and stabilize the family. After concluding that DOMA is not associated with this goal, the article explores what variables are correlated with family stability. Next, the article explores moral entrepreneurism and moral panic as a theoretical explanation for DOMAs continued attraction. Finally, the article offers pragmatic recommendations for achieving family stability.

Public Goods And Contract Standard Clauses: A New Approach, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

The aim of this work is to show how it is possible to identify market failures other than those traditionally identified by lawyers and law and economics scholars to justify the mandatory provisions of contracts between professionals and consumers and the equally mandatory provisions governing the abuse of economic dependency. This is a new approach that can be extended to other provisions and appears to rest on fairly solid microeconomic foundations. There is no doubt, however, that many criticisms can be leveled against it. Very briefly, I shall argue that the production of clauses characterized by being rather vague, indeterminate …

Employers United: An Empirical Analysis Of Corporate Political Speech In The Wake Of The Affordable Care Act, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard, Susan Scholz, Raquel Meyer Alexander

Elizabeth A. Weeks

Is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) bad for business? Did the countries' most prominent companies game the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure process to make negative political statements about ObamaCare? Immediately following the ACA's enactment on March 23, 2010, a number of companies drew scrutiny for issuing SEC filings writing off millions – and in AT&T's case, one billion dollars – against expected earnings for 2010 alone, based on a single, discrete tax-law change in the ACA. Congressional and Administration officials accused the firms of being “irresponsible” and using “big numbers to exaggerate the health reform's …

U.S.Foreign Trade Zones, Tax-Free Trade Zones Of The World, And Their Impact On The U.S. Economy, Susan W. Tiefenbrun

Susan W Tiefenbrun

ABSTRACT

U.S. Foreign Trade Zones, Tax-Free Trade Zones of the World, and Their Impact on the United States Economy , by Susan Tiefenbrun

Free trade zones (FTZs) date back to the time of the Phoenicians; they developed in the l970s and proliferated from 1980 until today. FTZs are duty-free areas where goods may be warehoused, processed, sold, serviced, distributed, showcased, packaged, labeled, sorted, assembled, and/or manufactured as finished goods prior to re-exporting them as duty-exempt finished products. More than one 135 countries operate tax-free trade zones. There are more than 3,500 of these zones and subzones all over the world, …

When The Tenth Justice Doesn’T Bark: The Unspoken Freedom Of Health Holding In Nfib V. Sebelius, Abigail Moncrieff

Abigail R. Moncrieff

There was an argument that Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli could have made—but didn’t—in defending Obamacare’s individual mandate against constitutional attack. That argument would have highlighted the role of comprehensive health insurance in steering individuals’ health care savings and consumption decisions. Because consumer-directed health care, which reaches its apex when individuals self insure, suffers from several known market failures and because comprehensive health insurance policies play an unusually aggressive regulatory role in attempting to correct those failures, the individual mandate could be seen as an attempt to eliminate inefficiencies in the health care market that arise from individual decisions to …

The Ease Of Doing Business And Land Grabbing:Critique Of The Investing-Across-Borders Indicators, David Hofisi, Araya Araya

David Tinashe Hofisi Mr

This paper analyses the policy implications and other potential impacts of the Investing Across Borders (IAB) indicators vis-à-vis cross border land investment deals. It analyses the theoretical underpinnings of the indicators and compares them with the other body of norms and standards in the International Development Architectures whilst suggesting reform and revision of the indicators to ensure harmony and more effectiveness.

Copyright Lawmaking And The Public Choice: From Legislative Battles To Private Ordering, Yafit Lev-Aretz

Yafit Lev-Aretz

On January 18th, 2012, the Web went dark in the largest online protest in history. Two anti-piracy Bills – The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and The Protect IP Act (PIPA) – attracted waves of opposition from the Internet community, which culminated on January 18th into an unprecedented 24-hour Web strike, followed by a decision to shelve the Bills indefinitely. This Article argues that the SOPA/PIPA protest created a new political reality in copyright lawmaking, with the tech industry becoming a very influential actor on the one hand, and social networks lowering mobilization costs of individual users on the other …

Allocation Of Fault In Contract Law, Avi Weiss, Osnat Jacobi

Avi Weiss

In this paper we consider situations in which the parties are in disagreement about the allocation of a certain risk, and either party could have acted ex-ante to prevent breach, to lower its probability or to insure against it (“least-cost avoidance” in tort law), but neither did so. When the state-of-the-world is revealed there remain steps the parties can take to prevent breach or mitigate damages. We consider strict liability and other regimes such as negligence and comparative fault, and show that the first-best solution is not achieved in those regimes because they incentivize the parties to consult the court …

Risk Based Student Loans, Michael Simkovic

Michael N Simkovic

Credit markets serve a vital function in capitalist economies: evaluating the riskiness of a range of possible investments and channeling resources toward those investments that investors believe are most likely to prove successful. This process is known as the “risk-based pricing” of credit. Ideally, risk-based pricing should lead to lower cost of capital for lower risk investment choices with larger rewards, and therefore more investment in such promising activities. Conversely, risk-based pricing should lead to higher costs of capital, and therefore less investment, in high-risk activities with relatively low rewards. If creditors are well informed and analytic, and borrowers respond …

Substantive Rights In A Constitutional Technocracy, Abigail Moncrieff

Abigail R. Moncrieff

There are two deep puzzles in American constitutional law, particularly related to individual substantive rights, that have persisted across generations: First, why do courts apply a double standard of judicial review, giving strict scrutiny to noneconomic liberties but mere rational basis review to economic ones? Second, why does American constitutional law take the common law baseline as the free and natural state that needs to be protected? This Article proposes a technocratic vision of substantive rights to explain and justify both of these puzzles. The central idea is that modern substantive rights—the rights to speech, religion, association, reproduction, and parenting—protect …

Danbury Hatters In Sweden: An American Perspective Of Employer Remedies For Illegal Collective Actions, César F. Rosado Marzán, Margot Nikitas

All Faculty Scholarship

The European Court of Justice's ("ECJ") Laval quartet held that worker collective actions that impacted freedom of services and establishment in the E.U. violated E.U. law. After Laval, the Swedish Labor Court imposed exemplary or punitive damages on labor unions for violating E.U. law. These cases have generated critical discussions regarding not only the proper balance between markets and workers’ freedom of association, but also what should be the proper remedies for employers who suffer illegal actions by labor unions under E.U. law. While any reforms to rebalance fundamental freedoms as a result of the Laval quartet will have to …