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Full-Text Articles in Law
Misbehavioral Law And Economics, Jacob Hale Russell
Misbehavioral Law And Economics, Jacob Hale Russell
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Many legal rules—ranging from common-law contract doctrines to modern consumer protection regulations—are designed to protect individuals from their own mistakes. But scholars have neglected a core difficulty facing such policies: we humans are a motley bunch, and we are defined in part by our idiosyncrasies. As a result, one person’s mistake is another’s ideal choice. Making matters worse, it is hard to observe when a policy response misfires. If cognitive errors and psychological biases are as prevalent as current research suggests, then we have no reliable way of knowing consumers’ true preferences. So are we always faced with a dilemma, …
The Limits Of Performance-Based Regulation, Cary Coglianese
The Limits Of Performance-Based Regulation, Cary Coglianese
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Performance-based regulation is widely heralded as a superior approach to regulation. Rather than specifying the actions regulated entities must take, performance-based regulation instead requires the attainment of outcomes and gives flexibility in how to meet them. Despite nearly universal acclaim for performance-based regulation, the reasons supporting its use remain largely theoretical and conjectural. Owing in part to a lack of a clear conceptual taxonomy, researchers have yet to produce much empirical research documenting the strengths and weaknesses of performance-based regulation. In this Article, I provide a much-needed conceptual framework for understanding and assessing performance-based regulation. After defining performance-based regulation and …
It Is Time For Washington State To Take A Stand Against Holmes's Bad Man: The Value Of Punitive Damages In Deterring Big Business And International Tortfeasors, Jackson Pahlke
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In Washington State, tortfeasors get a break when they commit intentional torts. Instead of receiving more punishment for their planned bad act, intentional tortfeasors are punished as if they committed a mere accident. The trend does not stop in Washington State—nationwide, punitive damage legislation inadequately deters intentional wrongdoers through caps and outright bans on punitive damages. Despite Washington State’s one hundred and twenty-five year ban on punitive damages, it is in a unique and powerful position to change the way courts across the country deal with intentional tortfeasors. Since Washington has never had a comprehensive punitive damages framework, and has …
Toward Economic Analysis Of The Uniform Probate Code, Daniel B. Kelly
Toward Economic Analysis Of The Uniform Probate Code, Daniel B. Kelly
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Insights from economics and the economic analysis of law may be useful in analyzing succession law, including intestacy and wills as well as nonprobate transfers such as trusts. After surveying prior works that have examined succession from a functional perspective, I explore the possibility of utilizing tools like (i) transaction costs, (ii) the ex ante/ex post distinction, and (iii) rules versus standards, to illuminate the design of the Uniform Probate Code. Specifically, I investigate how these tools, which legal scholars have employed widely in other contexts, may be relevant in understanding events like the nonprobate revolution and issues like "dead …
Paradigm Shifts And Access Controls: An Economic Analysis Of The Anticircumvention Provisions Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Melissa A. Kern
Paradigm Shifts And Access Controls: An Economic Analysis Of The Anticircumvention Provisions Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Melissa A. Kern
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Note addresses the broadened scope of protection granted to copyright holders under the anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). This broadened scope extends to copyright holders the right to control access to their works, diminishing the consumer's 'fair use" of those works that previously served as a defense to alleged copyright infringements. While access controls are supported by economists who believe they are useful in correcting market inefficiencies and excluding free riders, this Note suggests that access controls cannot correct all market inefficiencies. Furthermore, such access controls deny access and use of copyrighted material …
The Social And Political Challenge Of Inflation: An Economist's View, Harold T. Shapiro
The Social And Political Challenge Of Inflation: An Economist's View, Harold T. Shapiro
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Special Issue of the Journal of Law Reform has been nourished, at least in an emotional sense, by this same concern. The editors of the Journal apparently share the widespread frustration regarding what seem to increasing numbers of citizens as the largely intractable nature of the country's current economic ills. There is a certain apprehension that we may not be able to develop solutions to our lagging productivity, to our continuing inflation and unemployment, to our energy "problem," or to a host of other "economic" issues currently outstanding on the national agenda: unemployment of young people and minorities, environmental …