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Full-Text Articles in Law

Lawyers As Social Engineers: How Lawyers Should Use Their Social Capital To Achieve Economic Justice, Dana Thompson Jan 2021

Lawyers As Social Engineers: How Lawyers Should Use Their Social Capital To Achieve Economic Justice, Dana Thompson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review (MBELR) has always strived to provide a platform for legal scholars, professionals, and students to publish business-related legal scholarship. Yet, little legal business scholarship focusing on the Black business community exists, despite the extraordinary impact that Black communities have in the U.S. business landscape. In a year of revolutionary social change, we are excited to feature in this special issue the work of Professor Dana Thompson, a Michigan Law alumna, in an effort to remedy this gap. Professor Thompson’s career, professional values, and day-to-day work demonstrate genuine, commanding, and inspiring commitment to social …


A New Urban Front For Shareholder Primacy, Anne Choike Apr 2020

A New Urban Front For Shareholder Primacy, Anne Choike

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

The hundredth anniversary of Dodge v. Ford marks an occasion to reflect upon what, if anything, has changed about shareholder primacy in a century. Seizing this opportunity, in this Article I analyze new local laws and ordinances that promote stakeholder governance and engagement, which seek to protect the interests of non-shareholder constituencies such as workers, the environment, and the communities in which corporations operate, among others. In doing so, I argue that such local laws meaningfully differ from traditional stakeholder protections, most significantly in the way that they weaken managerial accountability to shareholders. The emergence of these city laws challenges …


Incubator Cities: Tomorrow's Economy, Yesterday's Start-Ups, Abraham J.B. Cable Jan 2013

Incubator Cities: Tomorrow's Economy, Yesterday's Start-Ups, Abraham J.B. Cable

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Venture development funds (“VDFs”) are products of state and local government law that use public funds to invest in local start-ups, in the hope that these companies will then attract venture capital investment. Existing analysis by legal scholars largely assumes that establishing a private venture capital market is essential to encouraging entrepreneurship. This article challenges that assumption. It argues that VDFs and other policies focused on encouraging venture capital are outmoded and inconsistent with the ultimate economic development goals of state and local governments. In many industries, entrepreneurs can now get by with less capital because the cost of developing …


The Ideal Deal: How Local Governments Can Get More For Their Economic Development Dollar, Rachel Weber, David Santacroce Jan 2007

The Ideal Deal: How Local Governments Can Get More For Their Economic Development Dollar, Rachel Weber, David Santacroce

Books

This handbook is designed to provide local economic development practitioners with an important tool. It takes the reader step-by-step through the different elements of contracts that treat public incentive packages as a quid pro quo for public benefits. Each section discusses a different element of the ideal deal: valuation of public costs and benefits, performance standards, disclosure and oversight, and enforcement. In each section we provide detailed examples of model provisions used by local governments in their incentive legislation, ordinances, and contracts -- information that has not before been obtained or recorded in any systematic way. These examples are meant …


Is A Municipal Fuel Yard A 'Public Service Plant'?, Evans Holbrook Jan 1923

Is A Municipal Fuel Yard A 'Public Service Plant'?, Evans Holbrook

Articles

In Consumers' Coal Co. et al. v. City of Lincoln, et al. (Neb. 1922) 189 N. W. 643, the supreme court of Nebraska held that a municipal fuel-yard, selling fuel at retail to the inhabitants of the city, was not a "public service plant" authorized by a section of the city charter which empowered the city to acquire, own and operate gas and electric plants, street railways, telephone plants, "and any and all other public service plants and properties, for the purpose of supplying the city and the inhabitants thereof with such service and public utilities." The suit was brought …


Public Utilities—Franchise Rates As Affected By The World War, Edwin C. Goddard Jan 1920

Public Utilities—Franchise Rates As Affected By The World War, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

The economic convulsions due to the World War are abundantly reflected in the relations between the public and their public utilities operating under franchises fixing rates for service. The enormous rise in cost of labor and materials has, in many cases, so reduced the net income of such utilities as to make it a negative quantity at existing franchise rates. The utilities are crying to be saved from bankruptcy, but the unfortunate suspicion bred by past dealings of many such companies has made the public skeptical, and perhaps in many cases entirely unreasonable. In some cases plain selfishness may explain …


Public Utility Valuation - Going-Concern Value In Rate Making, Edwin C. Goddard Jan 1918

Public Utility Valuation - Going-Concern Value In Rate Making, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

What is the effect of a city ordinance which proposes to a public utility company the terms on which it may dispose of its product to the users, but which is rejected by the company? As to a company not yet doing business it is clear that the ordinance when rejected becomes a mere legal nullity. It never was more than an offer that might ripen into a binding contract by acceptance. That it is by no means a nullity as to a utility actually operating in the city after the expiration of its franchise and as a mere tenant …


Liability Of Water Companies For Fire Losses, Edson R. Sunderland Jan 1906

Liability Of Water Companies For Fire Losses, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

In two recent articles published'in this Review, the question of the liability of water companies for fire losses was somewhat exhaustively discussed. The majority of the actions wherein it has been sought to hold water companies liable for fire losses suffered by private property owners, have been brought for breach of contract. In a few cases the theory adopted was that the water company owed a duty to all property owners, by reason of the public character of its service; and the fact that it was under contract with the city to furnish an adequate water supply and pressure for …