Law Commons^™

The Slogans And Goals Of Antitrust Law, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

This is a comparative examination of the slogans and goals most advocated for antitrust law today – namely, that antitrust should be concerned with “bigness,” that it should intervene when actions undermine the “competitive process,” or that it should be concerned about promoting some conception of welfare. “Bigness” as an antitrust concern targets firms based on absolute size rather than share of a market, as antitrust traditionally has done. The bigness approach entails that antitrust cannot be concerned about low prices, or the welfare of consumers and labor. Nondominant firms could not sustain very high prices or cause significant reductions …

The Role Of U.S. Government Regulatioms, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides detailed coverage of information resources on U.S. Government information resources for federal regulations. Features historical background on these regulations, details on the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations, includes information on individuals can participate in the federal regulatory process by commenting on proposed agency regulations via https://regulations.gov/, describes the role of presidential executive orders, refers to recent and upcoming U.S. Supreme Court cases involving federal regulations, and describes current congressional legislation seeking to give Congress greater involvement in the federal regulatory process.

How To Understand China's Approach To Central Bank Digital Currency?, Heng Wang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

China's central bank digital currency (CBDC), digital yuan or e-CNY, is likely to profoundly affect the international financial system. China's CBDC is fast evolving. Understanding the influencing factors of China's CBDC will likely be crucial to explore its future direction. Major influencing factors include (i) China's perception and conception of regulation and technology, (ii) complementarity between China's preferences and CBDC development, (iii) domestic and international legitimacy, and (iv) institutional development. This paper argues that these influencing factors contribute to China's likely approach of selectively reshaping the international financial system. Given the potential wide-ranging implications of the introduction of CBDC globally, …

Valuing Social Data, Amanda Parsons, Salomé Viljoen

Law & Economics Working Papers

Social data production is a unique form of value creation that characterizes informational capitalism. Social data production also presents critical challenges for the various legal regimes that are encountering it. This Article provides legal scholars and policymakers with the tools to comprehend this new form of value creation through two descriptive contributions. First, it presents a theoretical account of social data, a mode of production which is cultivated and exploited for two distinct (albeit related) forms of value: prediction value and exchange value. Second, it creates and defends a taxonomy of three “scripts” that companies follow to build up and …

The Eagle’S Eye On The Rising Dragon: Why The United States Has Shifted Its View Of China, Jackson Craig Scott

Baker Scholar Projects

Since 1978, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has long been viewed as an economic trading partner of the United States of America (US). The PRC has grown to be an economic powerhouse, and the US directly helped with that process and still benefits from it. However, during the mid-2010’s, US rhetoric began to turn sour against the PRC. The American government rhetoric toward the PRC, beginning with the Obama administration, switched. As Trump’s administration came along, they bolstered this rhetoric from non-friendly to more or less hostile. Then, Biden’s administration strengthened Trump’s rhetoric. Over the past ten years or …

Congressional Oversight Of U.S. Government Programs, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides detailed overview of how the U.S. Congress conducts oversight of federal agency programs. Contents include a letter from a member of Congress to an agency head concerning an environmental development in Indiana, information on the foundations of congressional oversight, details on how Congress may require agency reports on various subjects in public laws, an example of a congressionally mandated report by the Department of Defense, documentation of congressional funding of individual federal agencies, examples of congressional committee hearings, congressional committee issuance of oversight and investigative reports which may include dissenting opinions, Congressional Budget Office cost estimates on congressional committee …

U.S. Energy Information Administration Information Resources, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides information about the resources produced by U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration. These resources cover energy statistics for U.S., states, the United States, and foreign countries. They also cover energy products as varied as coal, natural gas, nuclear energy, petroleum, and renewable energy.

Worker Welfare And Antitrust, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

The important field of antitrust and labor has gone through a profound change in orientation. For the great bulk of its history labor has been viewed as a competitive threat, and the debate over antitrust and labor was framed around whether there should be a labor “immunity” from the antitrust laws. In just the last decade, however, the orientation has flipped. Most new writing views labor as a target of anticompetitive restraints imposed by employers. Antitrust is increasingly concerned with protecting labor rather than challenging its conduct.

Antitrust interest in labor markets is properly focused on two things. The smaller …

Governing Smart Cities As Knowledge Commons - Introduction, Chapter 1 & Conclusion, Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, Madelyn Sanfilippo

Book Chapters

Smart city technology has its value and its place; it isn’t automatically or universally harmful. Urban challenges and opportunities addressed via smart technology demand systematic study, examining general patterns and local variations as smart city practices unfold around the world. Smart cities are complex blends of community governance institutions, social dilemmas that cities face, and dynamic relationships among information and data, technology, and human lives. Some of those blends are more typical and common. Some are more nuanced in specific contexts. This volume uses the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework to sort out relevant and important distinctions. The framework grounds …

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 …

The Intersections Among Science, Technology, Policy And Law: In Between Truth And Justice, Paolo Davide Farah, Justo Corti Varela

Book Chapters

Different visions on the interaction between science, technology, policy and law have been presented. As common axe, we can detect the continuous search for truth and justice. Science and Law as social constructs, the distinction between truths and opinions through procedural method based on evidence and rationality, or how natural science “things” became facts, and consequently “truth”, are examples of this search. The evidence-gathering process that integrates scientific evidence into trial (sometimes by procedure and other times by a more substantive approach) is another possible approach. Of course, that the game of mutual influence among the four elements creates contradictions …

Artificial Intelligence And Contract Formation: Back To Contract As Bargain?, John Linarelli

Book Chapters

Some say AI is advancing quickly. ChatGPT, Bard, Bing’s AI, LaMDA, and other recent advances are remarkable, but they are talkers not doers. Advances toward some kind of robust agency for AI is, however, coming. Humans and their law must prepare for it. This chapter addresses this preparation from the standpoint of contract law and contract practices. An AI agent that can participate as a contracting agent, in a philosophical or psychological sense, with humans in the formation of a con-tract will have to have the following properties: (1) AI will need the cognitive functions to act with intention and …

Science, Technology, Society, And Law, Paolo Davide Farah, Justo Corti Varela

Book Chapters

Traditionally, science and technology have been granted as sources of knowledge and objective truth. However, much more recently, they are also seen as human activities, conducted in a social environment. This new approach focuses on the intersections between science, technology and society, and particularly their regulation by the law. Concerns on how to best regulate the interaction come up in modern societies, and when either their use or their impacts are global, international law and international organizations become involved. The impact of the fourfold relation is so high that science and technology are seen as one of the reasons for …

The Interlinkages Science-Technology-Law: Information And Communication Society, Knowledge-Based Economy And The Rule Of Law, Giovanni Bombelli, Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

This chapter focuses on the circular and complex relationship between science, technology, society, and law. The technology/society connection focuses on the democratic deficit issue. The democratic deficit would be a consequence of the lack of adaptability of western democracy to complex (information) societies, where technology (and the increasing access to data that it permits) is separating the connection between information and knowledge (as well as the classical legitimacy couple of democracy-truth) moving these societies towards a technocracy. On one hand, the technology-law circle deals with the progressive reduction of law to a normative technique (since the law is always late …

A More Capacious Concept Of Church, Philip Hackney, Samuel D. Brunson

Articles

United States tax law provides churches with extra benefits and robust protection from IRS enforcement actions. Churches and religious organizations are automatically exempt from the income tax without needing to apply to be so recognized and without needing to file a tax return. Beyond that, churches are protected from audit by stringent procedures. There are good reasons to consider providing a distance between church and state, including the state tax authority. In many instances, Congress granted churches preferential tax treatment to try to avoid excess entanglement between church and state, though that preferential treatment often just shifts the locus of …

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 …

The Price Of Fairness, Christopher Buccafusco, Daniel Hemel, Eric Talley

Faculty Scholarship

The COVID-19 pandemic led to acute supply shortages across the country as well as concerns over price increases amid surging demand. In the process, it reawakened a debate about whether and how to regulate “price gouging”—a controversy that continues as inflation has accelerated even as the pandemic abates. Animating this debate is a longstanding conflict between laissez-faire economics, which champions price fluctuations as a means to allocate scarce goods, and perceived norms of consumer fairness, which are thought to cut strongly against sharp price hikes amid shortages.

This Article provides a new, empirically grounded perspective on the price gouging debate …

Using The Lsat As A Labor Market Thermometer For Lawyers, James V. Koch, Barbara Blake-Gonzalez

Economics Faculty Publications

We rely upon a 50-state, 20-year panel to find that the number of Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) takers is only loosely related to economic conditions—although slightly more for men than for women, who in 2020 accounted for 58% of all LSAT takers. The number of test takers rose more than 35% between 2014 and 2020. This wave accentuated an already existing downtrend in the median real income of lawyers, and thus provides support for the hypothesis that most states have more lawyers than they need.

Do Lawyers Inhibit Economic Growth? New Evidence From The 50 U.S. States, James V. Koch, Richard J. Cebula

Economics Faculty Publications

Whether the activities of lawyers might hamper economic growth has been hotly contested over the past three decades. Contradictory conclusions have flowed from evidence that typically has focused on the impact of lawyers on the growth rates of countries. Disputes over definitions and samples that vary among countries have colored portions of these debates. We surmount many of these issues by adopting a 50-state panel covering the period 2005-2018 for the United States and by utilizing widely accepted variables regarding economic activity and who is considered a lawyer. Further, we utilize two distinct measures of the activity of lawyers and …

Sustainability In Public Procurement, Corporate Law And Higher Education (Introduction), Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

Lela Mélon’s edited collection brings a fresh perspective to the intricate relationship between corporations and sustainability. The book focuses on the role of state actors in boosting environmental protection and the increasing importance of state awareness on environmental crises. Whether it is procurement, or education or corporate governance, we are witnessing a proactive stance of the state that is balancing economic growth with ecological concerns. The difficulties faced in forcing a particular conduct in the private sphere is reviewed in detail in the book, along with national laws and regulations that, rather than promoting environmental protection, have had the opposite …

Urgenda Vs. Juliana: Lessons For Future Climate Change Litigation Cases, Paolo Davide Farah, Imad Antoine Ibrahim

Articles

No abstract provided.

Section 5 In Action: Reinvigorating The Ftc Act And The Rule Of Law, Lina M. Khan

Faculty Scholarship

The Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 didn’t just create a new agency. It created new law for that agency to enforce. The heart of that law is Section 5, which provides that ‘unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce’ are ‘hereby declared unlawful’. In passing this law, Congress also tasked the FTC with identifying the range of methods of competition that qualify as unfair, since lawmakers recognized they could not specify them all prospectively.

This is a straightforward reading of the statute, and yet it is somewhat controversial. There is a school of thought that considers Section 5’s …

Noneconomic Objectives, Global Value Chains And International Cooperation, Bernard M. Hoekman, Petros C. Mavroidis, Douglas R. Nelson

Faculty Scholarship

Systemic conflicts increasingly affect the global value chains (GVCs) underpinning globalization by creating policy uncertainty and politicizing trade and investment decisions. Unilateral policies to attain competitiveness and noneconomic objectives (NEOs), including national security, create incentives for international cooperation to attenuate policy spillovers. Recent initiatives seeking to do so are organized around supply chain governance and need not be anchored in trade agreements. Whether such cooperation is feasible and can be designed to be effective in realizing NEOs is unclear. Plurilateral GVC-centered cooperation offers a potential path for states to pursue NEOs and reduce policy uncertainty for international business. Research offers …

Price Gouging In A Pandemic, Christopher Buccafusco, Daniel Hemel, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

The COVID-19 pandemic led to acute supply shortages across the country as well as concerns over price increases amid surging demand. In the process, it reawakened a debate about whether and how to regulate “price gouging” — a controversy that continues as inflation has accelerated even as the pandemic abates. Animating this debate is a longstanding conflict between laissez-faire economics, which champions price fluctuations as a means to allocate scarce goods, and perceived norms of consumer fairness, which are thought to cut strongly against sharp price hikes amid shortages.

This Article provides a new, empirically grounded perspective on the price …

Climate Justice In The Anthropocene And Its Relationship With Science And Technology: The Importance Of Ethics Of Responsibility, Paolo Davide Farah, Alessio Lo Giudice

Articles

Climate change is a global phenomenon. Therefore, globalization is the necessary hermeneutical horizon to develop an analysis of the metamorphosis climate change could cause at a political, social, and economic level. Within this horizon, this Article shows how the relationship between the concept of the Anthropocene epoch and the request for justice allows for framing a climate-justice and intergenerational equity–focused political interpretation of the effects of climate change. In order to avoid reducing such an interpretation to merely an ideological critique of capitalism, the conception of climate justice needs to be grounded in a rational, ethical model. This Article proposes …

Provisional Measures In Aid Of Arbitration, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

The success of the New York Convention has made arbitration a preferred means of dispute resolution for international commercial transactions. Success in arbitration often depends on the extent to which a party may secure assets, evidence, or the status quo between parties prior to the completion of the arbitration process. This makes the availability of provisional measures granted by either arbitral tribunals or by courts fundamental to the arbitration. In this Article, I consider the existing legal framework for provisional measures in aid of arbitration, with particular attention to the sources of the rules providing for such measures. Those sources …

Trade And Transfer Of Environmentally Sound Technology In Asean: Mapping Priorities To Economic Treaty Negotiations, Locknie Hsu

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (“ASEAN”) share common objectives in economic, sociocultural and political-security integration. Addressing environmental concerns is animportant consideration which traverses different areas of integration policymaking. ASEAN has, in recent years, emphasised the importance of environmental considerations, including environmentally sound technologies (“ESTs”) which may contribute to its climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, in its law and policymaking. This article discusses the nexus between ASEAN’s needs for the transfer of ESTs and the group’s economic treaty negotiations. Through a “mapping” of such needs to free trade agreementareas, it aims to provide a pathway …

Does An Initial Public Offering (Ipo) Issuer's Securities And Exchange Commission Registration Fee Calculation Method Predict Pricing Revisions And Ipo Underpricing?, Patrick Corrigan

Journal Articles

This paper proposes a new proxy for the ex ante expectations of issuers and their underwriters about the direction of pricing revisions during the roadshows of an initial public offering (IPO): the way issuers elect to calculate the registration fees owed to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Consistent with fee-minimizing decision-making, I find that the choice of fee calculation method is associated with pricing revisions and IPO underpricing. This relationship suggests that issuers or their advisors may not incorporate economically significant private valuation information into the initial pricing range estimate and initial public offering price. The results provide empirical support …

Gamestop And The Reemergence Of The Retail Investor, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

The GameStop trading frenzy in January 2021 was perhaps the highest profile example of the reemergence of capital market participation by retail investors, a marked shift from the growing domination of those markets by large institutional investors. Some commentators have greeted retail investing, which has been fueled by app-based brokerage accounts and social media, with alarm and called for regulatory reform. The goals of such reforms are twofold. First, critics argue that retail investors need greater protection from the risks of investing in the stock market. Second, they argue that the stock market, in term, needs protection from retail investors. …

Can Micropolitan Areas Bridge The Urban/Rural Divide?, Sheila Foster, Clayton P. Gillette

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

There exists a well-known and significant divide between urban and rural areas in the United States. The divide has been documented along multiple dimensions – social, economic, and political – and is seen as a detrimental characteristic of our national identity and capacity for both economic development and civil political discourse. In this Article, we explore a subset of the urban/rural divide and propose a mechanism for reducing its economic and political effects within that limited realm. Specifically, we focus on the subset of rural areas that lie within what the Office of Management and Budget defines as micropolitan areas. …