Law Commons^™

Communication Breakdown: Reviving The Role Of Discourse In The Regulation Of Employee Collective Action, Jeffrey M. Hirsch

Jeffrey M. Hirsch

No abstract provided.

Modularity Theory And Internet Regulation, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

Modularity is often cited as one of the foundations for the Internet’s success. Unfortunately, academic discussions about modularity appearing in the literature on Internet policy are undertheorized. The persistence of nonmodular architectures for some technologies underscores the need for some theoretical basis for determining when modularity is the preferred approach. Even when modularity is desirable, theory must provide some basis for making key design decisions, such as the number of modules, the location of the interfaces between the modules, and the information included in those interfaces.

The literature on innovation indicates that modules should be determined by the nature of …

Board Diversity And Proxy Disclosure, Thomas Lee Hazen, Lissa Lamkin Broome

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Communication Breakdown: Reviving The Role Of Discourse In The Regulation Of Employee Collective Action, Jeffrey M. Hirsch

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Are Those Who Ignore History Doomed To Repeat It?, Peter Decherney, Nathan Ensmenger, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

In The Master Switch, Tim Wu argues that four leading communications industries have historically followed a single pattern that he calls “the Cycle.” Because Wu’s argument is almost entirely historical, the cogency of its claims and the force of its policy recommendations depends entirely on the accuracy and completeness of its treatment of the historical record. Specifically, he believes that industries begin as open, only to be transformed into closed systems by a great corporate mogul until some new form of ingenuity restarts the Cycle anew. Interestingly, even taken at face value, many of the episodes described in the …

The Coming Demise Of Deregulation Ii, Richard D. Cudahy

Richard D. Cudahy

An article that I had written in 1993, which forecast the "coming demise of deregulation," might at last be vindicated by the fallout from the banking and credit crisis. This article discuses recent developments in the banking and financial services industry, and anticipates a resurgence of regulation.

At The End Of The Clinical Trial: Does Access To Investigational Technology End As Well?, Richard S. Saver

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Why The Filed Rate Doctrine Should Not Imply Blanket Judicial Deference To Regulatory Agencies, Jim Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The filed rate doctrine is a venerable doctrine of public utility regulation. Federal courts applying the doctrine frequently defer to the regulatory agency and refuse to consider the merits of alleged violations of antitrust, tort or contract claims where resolution would require a departure from a filed rate. For over a century, the filed rate doctrine has served many important purposes. However, with increased attention to market-based approaches to electric power, natural gas and telecommunications regulation, there is reason to question both the doctrine's continued applicability and usefulness. This short essay argues that, as regulators implement competitive markets in utility …

The Managerial Turn In Environmental Policy, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Hedge Funds And Governance Targets, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

Corporate governance interventions by hedge fund shareholders are triggering debates between advocates of management empowerment and advocates of aggressive monitoring by actors in the capital markets. This Article intervenes with an empirical question: What, based on the record so far, have the hedge funds actually done to their targets? Information has been collected on 130 domestic firms identified in the business press since 2002 as targets of activist hedge funds, including the funds’ demands, their tactics, and the results of their interventions for the targets’ governance and finance. The survey results show that the hedge funds have an enviable record …

Private Standards, Public Governance: A New Look At The Financial Accounting Standards Board, William W. Bratton

All Faculty Scholarship

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (the “FASB”) presents a puzzle: How has this private standard setter managed simultaneously (1) to remain independent, (2) to achieve institutional stability and legitimacy, and (3) to operate in a politicized context in the teeth of op-position from its own constituents? This Article looks to governance design to account for this institutional success. The FASB’s founders made a strategic choice to create a regulatory agency that sought independence rather than political responsiveness. The FASB also set out a coherent theory of accounting, the “Conceptual Framework,” to contain and direct its decisions. The Conceptual Framework contributed …

Campaign Finance, Iron Triangles & The Decline Of American Political Discourse, Timothy A. Canova

Timothy A. Canova

The Constitution protects the rights of Americans to participate in politics through assembly and membership in private interest groups. Yet the Founders recognized that interest groups and factions posed a particular danger in a democracy. According to James Madison, there was no way to remove the causes of faction without destroying liberty itself. The only solution, he said, was to control the effects of faction by encouraging the proliferation of factions to oppose and counter the influence of any particular faction.

This is a legalistic judicial discourse that ignores the realities of power imbalances in contemporary society. The modern theoretical …

Regulatory Responses To Investor Irrationality: The Case Of The Research Analyst, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

An extensive body of behavioral economics literature suggests that investors do not behave with perfect rationality. Instead, investors are subject to a variety of biases that may cause them to react inappropriately to information. The policy challenge posed by this observation is to identify the appropriate response to investor irrationality. In particular, should regulators attempt to protect investors from bad investment decisions that may be the result of irrational behavior?

This Article considers the appropriate regulatory response to investor irrationality within the concrete context of the research analyst. Many commentators have argued that analyst conflicts of interest led to biased …

Institutional Competition To Regulate Corporations: A Comment On Macey, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Do Institutions Matter? The Impact Of The Lead Plaintiff Provision Of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, Stephen Choi, Jill E. Fisch, A. C. Pritchard

All Faculty Scholarship

When Congress enacted the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act in 1995 (“PSLRA”), the Act’s “lead plaintiff” provision was the centerpiece of its efforts to increase investor control over securities fraud class actions. The lead plaintiff provision alters the balance of power between investors and class counsel by creating a presumption that the investor with the largest financial stake in the case will serve as lead plaintiff. The lead plaintiff then chooses class counsel and, at least in theory, negotiates the terms of counsel’s compensation.

Congress’s stated purpose in enacting the lead plaintiff provision was to encourage institutional investors—pension funds, mutual …

The Securities Analyst As Agent: Rethinking The Regulation Of Analysts, Jill E. Fisch, Hillary A. Sale

All Faculty Scholarship

Recent press has highlighted shocking examples of bias, self-dealing, and inaccuracy in the behavior of the securities analyst. Critics have attributed the bubble and subsequent crash in the technology sector to analyst hype and posited that undue analyst optimism contributed to scandals such as Enron. After many years of minimal regulator oversight analysts are now the subject of extensive regulatory reform proposals, including a mandate in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requiring that the Securities and Exchange Commission adopt a variety of restrictions on analyst behavior.

Despite the media attention, there have been few attempts to conceptualize carefully the analyst's …

Empirical Analysis And Administrative Law, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

Empirical research has been used to study many areas of law, including administrative law. In this article Professor Coglianese discusses the current and future role of empirical research in understanding and improving administrative rulemaking. Criticism of government regulation and calls for regulatory reform have grown in the last few decades. Empirical research is a valuable tool for designing reforms that will truly improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and legitimacy of regulatory governance. Specifically, Professor Coglianese discusses three areas of administrative law that have benefited from empirical research—economic review of new regulations, judicial review of agency rulemaking, and negotiated rulemaking.

Agencies are …

Spoiling The Surprise: Constraints Facing Random Regulatory Inspections In Japan And The United States, Andrew Chin

Faculty Publications

This Article is organized as follows. Part I presents a rational actor model of legal compliance under an enforcement regime based on random inspections and identifies two classes of reforms that can be applied in combination to improve aggregate compliance. Part II introduces the problem of corrupt tip-offs into the model and argues that exogenous reforms are necessary to combat corruption. Part III surveys the use of random administrative inspections in the United States, reviews the approaches taken by four such programs to improve compliance and fight corruption, and describes the various constraints under which they must operate. Part IV …

Protecting The Environment: Finding The Balance Between Delaney And Free Play, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., Howard C. Kunreuther

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Redistributing Bank Insolvency Risks: Challenges To Limited Liability In The Bank Holding Company Structure, Lissa Lamkin Broome

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Private Market Solutions To The Savings And Loan Crisis: Bank Holding Company Acquisitions Of Savings Associations, Lissa Lamkin Broome

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Start Making Sense: An Analysis And Proposal For Insider Trading Regulation, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.