Law and Economics Commons^™

Us Trade Policy, China And The Wto (Foreword), Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

In ‘U.S. Trade Policy, China and the WTO’, Nerina Boschiero addresses a key topic in contemporary international economic law and global governance. By focusing on a turning point in global politics and the shaping/framing of trade policy in the U.S.– the election of President Donald Trump sheds light on the tumultuous process of reshaping of global governance. The crisis of multilateralism has been discussed at length in academia and mainstream media. However, little attention has been paid to how the U.S. is reacting to the rise of China in the global order, in practical terms. In particular, focus …

Public Ownership And The Wto In A Post Covid-19 Era: From Trade Disputes To A 'Social' Function, Paolo Davide Farah, Davide Zoppolato

Articles

Public ownership is closely bound to the need of the government to protect and guarantee the well-being of its citizens. Where the market cannot, or does not want to, provide goods and services, the State uses different tools to intervene, influence, and control some aspects of the private sphere of expression of its citizens in the name and interest of the collectivity. Although, in the past century, this behavior was accepted as one of the expressions of the public authority and part of the social contract, this perception has shifted partially in accordance with the wave of privatization programs initiated …

Gandhi’S Prophecy: Corporate Violence And A Mindful Law For Bhopal, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

AbstractOver thirty years have passed since the Bhopal chemical disaster began,and in that time scholars of corporate social responsibility (CSR) havediscussed and debated several frameworks for improving corporate responseto social and environmental problems. However, CSR discourse rarelydelves into the fundamental architecture of legal thought that oftenbuttresses corporate dominance in the global economy. Moreover, CSRdiscourse does little to challenge the ontological and epistemologicalassumptions that form the foundation for modern economics and the role ofcorporations in the world.I explore methods of transforming CSR by employing the thought ofMohandas Gandhi. I pay particular attention to Gandhi’s critique ofindustrialization and principle of swadeshi (self-sufficiency) …

Users' Patronage: The Return Of The Gift In The "Crowd Society", Giancarlo F. Frosio

Giancarlo Francesco Frosio

In this work, I discuss the tension between gift and market economy throughout the history of creativity. For millennia, the production of creative artifacts has lain at the intersection between gift and market economy. From the time of Pindar and Simonides – and until the Romanticism will commence a process leading to the complete commodification of creative artifacts – market exchange models run parallel to gift exchange. From Roman amicitia to the medieval and Renaissance belief that “scientia donum dei est, unde vendi non potest,” creativity has been repeatedly construed as a gift. Again, at the time of the British …

The Customary Practice Of Gerawee In Afghanistan: A Case For Transitioning To Real Equity-Based Finance, Haroun Rahimi

Haroun Rahimi

The customary practice of Gerawee, in principle, refers to a specific form of synthetic loan. It is a pledge-lease transaction that enables owners of immovable properties to obtain financing based on the market value of those properties in exchange for either paying regular payments in form of rent or transferring the right to lease those properties to a financer. The practice has been developed to help debtors and creditors avoid the prohibition of interest bearing loans under Shari’ah. Despite the efforts of some Muslim jurists to justify the practice under Shari’ah, it is widely criticized. In particular, Afghan muftis …

Some Basic Marxist Concepts To Understand Income Tax, John Passant

John Passant

The paper introduces readers to some basic Marxist concepts to give the building blocks for an alternative understanding of tax and perhaps even to inspire some to use these concepts and ideas in their future research. It argues that the tax system reflects the phenomena of wealth and income and that there is a deeper reality obscured and ignored by the income tax system as an outcrop of a capitalist system which does the same. This deeper reality is that capital exploits workers and that profit, rent, interest and the like are the money form of the unpaid labour of …

Broad Shareholder Value And The Inevitable Role Of Conscience, Paul D. Weitzel, Zachariah J. Rodgers

Paul D. Weitzel

This article proposes an integrative solution to the modern debate on corporate purpose, the question of whether directors and officers must solely maximize profits or whether they may consider the effects on employees, the environment or the community. Many find pure profit maximization unseemly and suggest alternative theories, typically arguing that corporations owe a duty to a broader range of stakeholders. This position is inconsistent with the case law and unnecessary to allow conscience in the board room. We resolve the issue more simply by acknowledging that the purpose of a corporation is to promote the shareholders’ interests, which includes …

Bridgefunding Is Crowdfunding For Startups Across The Private Equity Gap, Seth C. Oranburg

Seth C Oranburg

Title III of the JOBS Act of 2012, which attempts to encourage entrepreneurship by allowing startups and small business to sell stock to the general public over the Internet through “crowdfunding,” is completely backwards. Its ceiling should be a floor—the $1 million limit should be inverted. By capping startups at raising $1 million from crowdfunding, the JOBS Act does not address the private equity gap, a fundamental problem in startup markets, and exposes unsophisticated investors to risk and fraud. This Article presents a regulatory framework premised on “bridgefunding,” an approach that this article develops to protect new investors by encouraging …

Dirty Debts Sold Dirt Cheap, Dalie Jimenez

Dalie Jimenez

More than 77 million Americans have a debt in collections. Many of these debts will be sold to debt buyers for pennies, or fractions of pennies, on the dollar. This Article details the perilous path that debts travel as they move through the collection ecosystem. Using a unique dataset of 84 consumer debt purchase and sale agreement, it examines the manner in which debts are sold, oftentimes as simple data on a spreadsheet, devoid of any documentary evidence. It finds that in many contracts, sellers disclaim all warranties about the underlying debts sold or the information transferred. Sellers also sometimes …

Regulatory Institutions Of The Global South: Why Are They Different And What Can Be Done About It?, Yugank Goyal

Yugank Goyal

Developing countries suffer from underperforming regulatory agencies compared to those in the developed world. The paper attempts to theorize general reasons behind such divergence. It argues that the differences lie in developing countries’ (a) higher priorities for redistribution, (b) structurally different institutional endowments, especially at informal level, and (c) limited informational channels. The paper proposes that a multi-stakeholder (with increased emphasis on judiciary and civil society) approach has potential to address the shortcomings. It tests these claims through studying cases of telecom and electricity regulation in India.

Present At The Creation: Reflections On The Early Years Of The National Association Of Corporate Directors, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

Effective corporate governance is critical to the productive operation of the global economy and preservation of our way of life. Excellent governance execution is also required to achieve economic growth and robust job creation in any country. In the United States, the premier director membership organization is the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). Since 1978, NACD plays a major role in fostering excellence in corporate governance in the United States and beyond. The NACD has grown from a mere realization of the importance of corporate governance to become the only national membership organization created by and for corporate directors. …

Let Educators Educate, Let Builders Build: Making A Case For School Facility Privatization, John Pizzo

John Pizzo

No abstract provided.

Gambling On Our Financial Future: How The Federal Government Fiddles While State Common Law Is A Safer Bet To Prevent Another Financial Collapse, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

What Do We Worry About When We Worry About Price Discrimination? The Law And Ethics Of Using Personal Information For Pricing, Akiva A. Miller

Akiva A Miller

New information technologies have dramatically increased sellers’ ability to engage in retail price discrimination. Debates over using personal information for price discrimination frequently treat it as a single problem, and are not sufficiently sensitive to the variety of price discrimination practices, the different kinds of information they require in order to succeed, and the different ethical concerns they raise. This paper explores the ethical and legal debate over regulating price discrimination facilitated by consumers’ personal information. Various kinds of “privacy remedies”—self-regulation, technological fixes, state regulation, and legislating private causes of legal action—each have their place. By drawing distinctions between various …

Should The Commercial Landlord Have A Duty To Mitigate Damages After The Tenant Abandons?: A Legal And Economic Analysis, David Crump

David Crump

When a commercial tenant abandons the premises, the landlord’s costs continue. Does the landlord, then, have the burden of mitigating damages for a suit against the tenant? Two different rules apply in different states. Some states, including Pennsylvania, put the burden of mitigation on the breaching party: the commercial tenant. Other states, however, put the burden entirely on the non-breaching party: the landlord. Texas follows this latter approach, placing the burden solely on the innocent party and not on the breaching party. The Texas rule, which puts the burden of mitigation on the non-breaching commercial landlord, has serious disadvantages. First, …

Present At The Creation: Reflections On The Early Years Of The National Association Of Corporate Directors, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

Effective corporate governance is critical to the productive operation of the global economy and preservation of our way of life. Excellent governance execution is also required to achieve economic growth and robust job creation in any country. In the United States, the premier director membership organization is the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). Now over 36 years old, NACD plays a major role in fostering excellence in corporate governance in the United States and beyond. Over the past thirty-six years NACD has grown from a mere realization of the importance of corporate governance to become the only national membership …

How To Create American Manufacturing Jobs, John D. Gleissner Esquire

John D Gleissner Esquire

No abstract provided.

Negative Externalities And Subprime Auto Financing: Time To Let The Hanging Paragraph Go(2), Chunlin Leonhard

Chunlin Leonhard

Economists generally agree that when private transactions generate negative externalities (i.e. unintended harmful byproduct), government intervention is potentially necessary. Negative externalities are considered socially inefficient because they destroy market supply and demand equilibrium. The existence of negative externalities is therefore one of those rare occasions when government intervention in private transactions is justified. It follows that when the government does choose to intervene, its goal should be to remedy, not to encourage, negative externalities. This article identifies one bankruptcy rule, commonly known as the Hanging Paragraph in the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. § 1325(a)(9), that violates the basic principle of …

Coase V. Pigou: A Still Difficult Debate, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

This paper examines the positions of Coase and Pigou about the problem of the externalities. From the reading of their most two important works it appears that Coase has a more relevant preference for a evaluation of efficiency at the total, while Pigou, with some exception, is convinced that is possible to reach marginal efficiency through taxes or responsibility. It’s interesting that Coase, who has elaborated the famous theorem, is convinced that is not possible to reach the efficiency at the margin every time and that sometimes is necessary a valuation at the total, that tells us which solution is …

Rise Of The Intercontinentalexchange And Implications Of Its Merger With Nyse Euronext, Latoya C. Brown

Latoya C. Brown, Esq.

This paper examines the impending merger between the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) and NYSE Euronext against the backdrop of the current structure of the global financial services industry. The paper concludes that the merger embodies what the financial services industry is becoming and captures the model that will allow exchanges to remain competitive in today’s marketplace: mega-exchanges with broader asset classes and electronic platforms. As technology and globalization threaten their vitality, exchanges will need to continue reinventing and adapting. Increasingly over the last decade they have done so by merging and by moving, at least a part of, their operations on screen. …

The Problem Of Internalization Of Social Costs And The Ideas Of Ronadl Coase, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

In this paper, I try to show that, although some arguments elaborated by Coase do not have a great practical importance, and that it seems that the most important one against a system of remedies for each externalities (if we are able to define this concept) is difficult to create, Coase has understood many problems that they have been at the basis of later studies in tort and property law; but, what is more important here, is to underline that a system of remedies for every externalities have been refused by eminent scholars after Coase The work of the English …

Contracting I The -Modern Woerld, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

In this paper I want to show that the change that we observe in the way of contracting do not depend by the market powers that firms would have obtained, but it is a phenomenon due to the change in relative costs of activities. There are activities that are labor intensive that must be abandoned in favor of activities that capital intensive, and there are activities that are time consuming that the people do not want to bea, as reading all the contract clauses of a standard form contract, that determine the necessity, probably, if there is not a state …

Contracting In Modern World, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

In this paper I try explore some of the basic features of modern mass contracting. In my opinion, there are basically four characteristics of modern mass contracting: a)he reduced negotiations; b) the dissemination of standard form contracts; c) the presence of abusive clauses; d) and the recapitulation of the contract and its execution in a single act of stipulation. All the changes are the consequences in the changes of relative costs of activities: 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 personalized contracts; …

Casev. Pigou: A Still Difficult Debate, Enrico Baffi

enrico baffi

This paper examine the positions of Coase and Pigou about the problem of the externalities. From the reading of their most two important works it appears that Coase has a more relevant preference for a evaluation of efficiency at the total, while Pigou, with some exception, is convinced that is possible to reach marginal efficiency through taxes or compensation. It’s interesting that Coase, who has elaborated the famous theorem, is convinced that is not important to reach the efficiency at the margin every time and that sometimes is necessary a valuation at the total, that tells us which solution is …

Is Free Trade "Free?" Is It Even "Trade?" Oppression And Consent In Hemispheric Trade Agreements, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

In order for free trade as a policy to deliver fully on its social promise, it must be both “free” and “trade.” In fact, it must be free, in the sense of voluntary, to be trade at all. In other words, for normative and practical reasons, free trade requires that global economic relations be structured through agreements which reflect the consent of those subject to them. The neoliberal trading system today only imperfectly lives up to this obligation. In this essay, I will examine the role of consent in trade agreements, drawing on examples from CAFTA as representative of important …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Cash, Credit Or Cell Phone? How To Influence Public Preferences About Payment Systems, Sarah E. Waldeck, Erik Lillquist

ExpressO

The paper examines how the government can influence the public’s choice of a particular payment system: not only existing systems like credit and debit cards, but innovative products such as stored value cards, electronic checks and electronic money. The success or failure of a new payment system can have a large economic impact, with shifts toward electronic payment options in particular having the potential to save up to one percent of a nation’s gross domestic product. For the United States, that translates to approximately one hundred billion dollars worth of savings.

Whether a new payment system succeeds or fails depends …

Corporations And The Lateral Obligations Of The Social Contract, Benedict Sheehy

ExpressO

Social contract theorists suggest that society at some level is based on the idea that human people surrender freedom for the privilege of participating in society. That participation implicitly requires more than mere minimal compliance with law. Each human person’s contribution to society above the legal baseline, permits humans to create a society that is at least tolerable. Corporations as non-human act without regard for these supra-legal obligations which results in society suffering injustice. Corporate participation in society has become increasingly unjust and has done so to the extent that we may speak of living in a post-ethical world.

Corporations And Social Costs: The Wal-Mart Case Study, Benedict Sheehy

ExpressO

This article examines the role of the corporate vehicle in the creation of social costs. The article identifies some of the political commitments and philosophies behind the differing notions of corporations. Social costs are those activities which result from business activity and cause uncompensated harm to society. The founding contribution to the law and economics discussion by Ronald Coase is given a thorough treatment. The paper next, turns to the dominant explanation of corporate structure, namely the law and economics model developed expounded by Easterbrook and Fischel. It then applies the theoretical discussion in a case study of the world’s …

Un-Fair Trade As Friendly Fire: The Australia-Usa Free Trade Agreement, Benedict Sheehy

ExpressO

Trade, economists and trade theorists advise, is a mutually beneficial exercise. Among this group, a particular set of advocates, claim that “Free Trade” is in the interest of all parties. As will be demonstrated, Free Trade is not truly “free” but an exercise of foreign policy and the implementation of policies favouring wealthy corporate interest groups. Free Trade is controlled by wealthy nations who have stacked the rules in favour of themselves, and in particular their corporate interests, and against the poor producers in poor nations. This control is used contrary to fairness, economic and ecological logic. Fair trade, by …