Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Patent Political Economy - Indian Lessons On Pharmaceutical Patent, Julien L. Chaisse, Samira Guennif

ExpressO

The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime adopted by any country is essentially a tool that strives to ensure both the growth of the domestic pharmaceutical industry and people’s access to medicines. But, contrary to the very easily advanced theory, there is no paradox between the two. From this perspective, the Indian experience has shown that it is precisely the relaxation of its national IPR regime that promoted the growth of its domestic industry, thereby ensuring a better patient access to medicines. However, the globalisation process does not overlook any sector, which means that medicines too are submitted to the new …

The De-Gentrification Of New Markets Tax Credits, Roger M. Groves

ExpressO

This article provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the New Markets Tax Credits program established by Congress. The purpose of the NMTCs is to use tax credits as incentives for investors to provide equity funds into low income areas. The article reveals that over $2 billion of federal tax subsidies that have been allocated to gentrified projects for the wealthy, rather than the intended beneficiaries – low income residents in the urban core – as Congress intended. The article proposes amendments to the statute and regulations to close unintended loopholes.

Tradeoffs In Formulating A Consistent National Policy On Adoption, Mary Eschelbach Hansen, Daniel Pollack

ExpressO

Just as the courts must consider the tradeoff between the best interest of the child and parental rights in involuntary termination of parental rights, policy on international adoption must consider the tradeoffs between the best interest of the child and the long-term interests of the nation. We argue that countries that suspend international adoptions do not maximize social welfare. A consistent national policy to maximize the well-being of the children and society at large would be to devote resources today to the oversight of international adoption in accord with child protections under the Hague Convention, while at the same time …

Contractarianism, Contractualism, And The Law Of Corporate Insolvency, Riz Mokal

ExpressO

What is the appropriate way of theorising about corporate bankruptcy law? That lies, argues this paper, in rejecting Pareto and Kaldor-Hicks efficiency in favour of a particular conception of transaction cost efficiency, and in rejecting the ‘contractarian’ Creditors’ Bargain Model in favour of the ‘contractualist’ Authentic Consent Model. The paper vindicates these arguments with an analysis of the automatic stay which characterises the collective liquidation regime, of the pari passu principle often said to be at the heart of this regime, and of the liability imposed in some jurisdictions on the managers of terminally distressed companies for failing to take …

Privatization And The Law And Economics Of Political Advocacy, Alexander Volokh

ExpressO

A common argument against privatization is that private providers, motivated by self-interest, will advocate changes in substantive policy. In this Article, I evaluate this argument, using, as a case study, the argument against prison privatization based on the possibility that the private prison industry will distort the criminal law by advocating incarceration.

This “political influence” argument applies at least as well to public provision: Government agencies, too, lobby for changes in substantive law. In the prison industry, for instance, it is unclear whether private firms advocate incarceration to any significant extent, but public guard unions are known to do so …

Is The Compensation Model For Real Estate Brokers Obsolete?, Thomas J. Miceli, Katherine A. Pancak, C. F. Sirmans

Economics Working Papers

This study examines the traditional compensation model for real estate brokers under which both the listing and buyer brokers are paid by the seller based on a percentage of the property sales price. We argue that this model has not evolved to reflect contemporary legal agency relationships and technology-driven information availability. It therefore creates substantial transactional inefficiencies for buyers and sellers at both the matching and bargaining stages of a transaction. While there is evidence that market forces are pushing for a change in the status quo, there is also evidence that the brokerage industry is resisting this change by …

November 2006, Syracuse Department Of Economics

Economics - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Hit And Miss: Leverage, Sacrifice, And Refusal To Deal In The Supreme Court Decision In Trinko, Nicholas Economides

ExpressO

Under the rules of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, incumbent local exchange carriers, including Verizon, were obligated to lease parts of their local telecommunications network to any firm at “cost plus a reasonable profit” prices which could combine them at will, add retailing services and sell local telecommunication service as a rival to the incumbent. AT&T, an entrant in local telecommunications, leased parts of Verizon’s network. Trinko, a local telecommunications services customer of AT&T, sued Verizon alleging various anti-competitive actions of Verizon against AT&T, including that Verizon raised the costs of AT&T, its downstream retail rival. The Supreme Court held …

A Neo-Chicago Perspective On The Law Of Product Tying: Exposing The Last Sanctuary Of The Harvard School, Alan J. Devlin

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

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.

Compulsory Labor In A National Emergency: Public Service Or Involuntary Servitude? The Case Of Crippled Ports, Michael H. Leroy

ExpressO

The 13th Amendment ban on involuntary servitude has new relevance as the U.S. grapples with national emergencies such as catastrophic hurricanes, flu pandemics, and terrorism. This Article considers work refusal and coerced work performance in life-threatening employment contexts. Overwhelmed by fear, hundreds of police officers and health care workers abandoned their jobs during Hurricane Katrina. Postal clerks worked against their will without masks in facilities with anthrax. A report by Congress worries that avian flu will cause sick and frightened medical personnel to stay away from work, thus jeopardizing a coherent response to a crisis.

How far can the U.S. …

The Conditional Effects Of Ideology And Institutional Structure On Judicial Voting In State Supreme Courts, Jeff L. Yates, Paul Brace, Brent Boyea

ExpressO

Two enormously influential perspectives on courts offer fundamentally different predictions about court outcomes and the effects of judge ideology on those outcomes. Well-known to political scientists studying courts, the ideological voting (IV) literature argues that judge ideology is a strong predictor of court outcomes and that those outcomes should be proximate to the policy preferences of courts. Less known to political scientists but highly influential, the law and economics perspective (LE) focuses on settlement behavior of litigants who try to minimize costs and thus estimate likely outcomes in court, and settle simpler cases pre-trial. In this case selection process litigants …

Through The Looking Glass: Runaway Productions And "Hollywood Economics", Adrian H. Mcdonald

ExpressO

This paper uses the issue of runaway production as a looking glass into the complex world of Hollywood economics and politics. As such, a broad overview of Hollywood's business practices, history, and technology are discussed so the reader can understand how runaway production (a major issue itself) is one piece of the Hollywood puzzle. Specifically, this paper attempts to study runaway productions from the Law and Economics approach described in Judge Richard Posner's text on the subject. Events in 2006 illustrate the continuing importance of runaway productions and CEIDR's August 2006 report is discussed in this paper.

Recently expanded, this …

Price Discrimination With Contract Terms: The Lost Volume Problem, Barry E. Adler, Alan Schwartz

ExpressO

In a common commercial pattern, the seller of a standard product contracts with one buyer and then sells to another at the contract price after the initial buyer breaches. Sellers argue, and courts largely agree, that the seller could have served the contract buyer as well as the later buyer; hence, the seller is entitled to retain a down payment to the extent of, or sue to recover, the profit – price less cost – that it would have realized on the initial sale had that sale been completed. Some courts and many scholars disagree, arguing that resale of the …

Rent Concessions And Illegal Contract Penalties In Texas, James P. George

ExpressO

This article discusses penalty damages in residential leases in Texas. The sales pitch is a rent concession which is later reimposed if the buyer breaches. In contracts where the reimposed penalty reimburses the seller well beyond the consideration anticipated in the normal performance of the agreement, the reimposed discount is an illegal penalty. These contracts are pervasive but for the most part go unchalllenged.

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

The editor's note at the beginning of this journal briefly speaks about each article within. The author touches upon learning, the challenges to an education, the effects of the growth of technology, how world politics interfere with economy, and how employment is affected by technology.

Montana Nonresident Traveler Expenditure Profiles: 2005, Kara Grau

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

This report examines spending profiles of nonresident travelers to Montana. It displays the average daily expenditures by purpose of trip for different spending categories during 2005.

Encouraging The Returner: Maximizing Benefits From Training Investments In High Turnover Industry, Karl R. Geisler

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

No matter what they make, do, or sell, every single organization in the world relies ultimately on one thing: people. Whether working for a company, a campaign, or a cooperative, the quality of the people involved has a direct impact on the success achieved therein. In an attempt to make the most of the workers that they have nearly every organization across the globe undertakes some level of training. Whether demonstrating how to use a hammer or holding a week-long retreat on corporate culture and structure, it is difficult to find an organization that does not have some form of …

Montana Nonresident Traveler Expenditure Trends: 1995-2005, Kara Grau

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

This report shows the nonresident traveler expenditure trends for visitors of Montana from 1995-2005. It also displays the total actual expenditures and the total inflation-adjusted expenditures.

Montana Nonresident Traveler Expenditures And Economic Contribution: 2005, Kara Grau

Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research Publications

This report shows the economic contributions, expenditures, and average daily spending of nonresident visitors to Montana during 2005.

Just Insurance Through Global Macro-Hedging: Information, Distributive Equity, Efficiency, And New Markets For Systemic-Income-Risk-Pricing And Systemic-Income-Risk-Trading In A New Economy, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article considers the prospects for exploiting (a) several deep conceptual linkages between justice and insurance, (b) the rapid development of new hedging methods and technologies, and (c) an increasingly integrated global finance economy, in a manner that can render the global economy both more just and more prosperous.

It first derives an account of economic justice from the best known theories currently in the field – an account likely to enjoy broad appeal. The article then elaborates on a number of striking parallels between what it takes for the best account of justice on the one hand, the theory …

Whose Ownership? Which Society?, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The idea of an "ownership society" (OS) is not new to American politics or law. It might be called the seventeen year cicada of American domestic policy - emerging once per generation onto the national agenda, generating just a bit of buzz, then receding once again to leave a mass of empty shells and buried eggs behind. Unlike the insects, however, OS proposals seldom have sounded the same notes to everyone's ears. They have been proffered to or on behalf of differing constituencies for differing reasons, and therefore have tended to mean different things to different people. It is tempting …

From "Mission-Creep" To Gestalt Switch: Justice, Finance, The Ifis, And Globalization's Intended Beneficiaries, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This essay suggests means by which the international financial institutions (IFIs), the IBRD and the IMF in particular, and indeed "globalization" more generally might be rendered more friendly to humanity. The key, it suggests, lies in a subtle shift in perspective, a "gestalt-switch": It is to move from thinking in terms of political and macroeconomic aggregates - nations and gross national products - to thinking in terms of the individuals who constitute nations and produce national products - those the essay calls the "intended beneficiaries" of globalization.

Thinking in terms of those beneficiaries and their equal claims to our concern …

Copyright's Empire: Why The Law Matters , Alina Ng

ExpressO

Two separate and distinct movements have colonized research in the field of intellectual property. Law and economics has deepened our understanding of the justification for granting monopoly rights over intellectual property. In recent years, economic theories have been used to support the growth of the commons – the free environment, where intellectual property plays little role in generating new creative works and innovation. The second movement is law and technology that has sought to increase understanding of intellectual property through the exploration of how technologies either provide freedoms or impose limitations to how creative works and innovation are created and …

Minding The Gaps: Fairness, Welfare, And The Constitutive Structure Of Distributive Assessment, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

Despite over a century’s disputation and attendant opportunity for clarification, the field of inquiry now loosely labeled “welfare economics” (WE) remains surprisingly prone to foundational confusions. The same holds of work done by many practitioners of WE’s influential offshoot, normative “law and economics” (LE).

A conspicuous contemporary case of confusion turns up in recent discussion concerning “fairness versus welfare.” The very naming of this putative dispute signals a crude category error. “Welfare” denotes a proposed object of distribution. “Fairness” describes and appropriate pattern of distribution. Welfare itself is distributed fairly or unfairly. “Fairness versus welfare” is analytically on all fours …

Rent Concessions, Reimposable Discounts, And The Return Of Medieval Contract Penalties, James P. George

ExpressO

This article discusses penalty damages in consumer contracts. It focuses on rent concessions in apartment leases, and includes lesser discussions of deferred payments and interest in the purchase of cars, furniture and appliances. The sales pitch is a deferral or discount which is later reimposed if the buyer breaches, with some contracts keying on small breaches such as late payment. In contracts where the reimposed penalty reimburses the seller well beyond the consideration anticipated in the normal performance of the agreement, the reimposed discount is an illegal penalty. These contracts are pervasive but for the most part go unchalllenged.

Essay -- Preemption, Agency Cost Theory, And Predatory Lending By Banking Agents: Are Federal Regulators Biting Off More Than They Can Chew?, Christopher L. Peterson

ExpressO

A pitched battle is currently being waged for control of the American banking industry. For over a hundred years, the federal and state governments have maintained a complex, but relatively stable truce in their contest for power. At the beginning of our republic, state governments were the primary charterers and regulators of banks. In the wake of the Civil War, the National Bank Act created parity between federal and state banks, cementing the notion of a “dual banking system” that endured through the twentieth century. But in the past five years, the federal government has increasingly used its powers under …

From Macro To Micro To “Mission-Creep”: Defending The Imf’S Emerging Concern With The Infrastructural Prerequisites To Global Financial Stability, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Charges that the IMF has been engaging in "mission creep," gradually taking on a growing number of activities that exceed its constitutive mandate, have grown both in vehemence and in frequency since the late 1990s. I argue that, what ever the substantive merits of its actions, the IMF's developing attention to the structural determinants of global financial stability is not ultra vires. The Fund's evolving role was both foreseen and constitutionally provided for, both at its founding and at the principal constitutive Articles-amending "moments" since.

Legal Consciousness And Contractual Obligations, Kojo Yelpaala

ExpressO

The Article on “Legal Consciousness and Contractual Obligations” will explore and offer an explanation of the origins of the moral foundations for contractual obligations beyond conventional analysis. Building on themes and threads across many disciplines and theories, it seeks to identify and locate certain unities and common elements that explain human consciousness in exchange relations across cultures. The term contract is used in its non-technical and most inclusive sense to cover agreements, promises, undertakings and other forms of consensus whether or not supported by consideration. Viewed within this broad conceptual framework, where do human beings get the idea that they …

Tribal Bondage: Statutory Shackles And Regulatory Restraints On Tribal Economic Development, Gavin Clarkson

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

Upwards of $50 billion in capital needs go unmet each year in Indian Country in such vital sectors as infrastructure, community facilities, housing, and enterprise development, in part due to the restrictions imposed on tribal access to the capital markets, specifically the ability of tribal governments to issue tax-exempt debt. Section 7871 of the Internal Revenue Code requires tribal tax-free bond proceeds to be used only for “essential governmental functions,” a restriction not applicable to state and municipal bonds, and Section 7871(e) further limits the scope of available tax-exempt bonding to activities “customarily performed by State and local governments with …