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Comparison Excluding Commitments: Incommensurability, Adjudication, And The Unnoticed Example Of Trade Disputes, Sungjoon Cho, Richard Warner Dec 2015

Comparison Excluding Commitments: Incommensurability, Adjudication, And The Unnoticed Example Of Trade Disputes, Sungjoon Cho, Richard Warner

Sungjoon Cho

We claim that there are important cases of “incommensurability” in public policymaking, in which all relevant reasons are not always comparable on a common scale as better, worse, or equally good. Courts often fail to confront this. We are by no means the first to contend that incommensurability exists. Yet incommensurability’s proponents have failed to sway the courts mainly because they overlook the fact that there are two types of incommensurability. The first (“incompleteness incommensurability”) consists of the lack of any appropriate metric for making the comparison. We argue that this type of incommensurability is relatively unproblematic in that courts …

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Insuring Floods: The Most Common And Devastating Natural Catastrophies In America, Christopher French Feb 2015

Insuring Floods: The Most Common And Devastating Natural Catastrophies In America, Christopher French

Christopher C. French

Flooding is the most common natural catastrophe Americans face, accounting for 90% of all damage caused by natural catastrophes. Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, for example, collectively caused over $160 billion in damage, but only approximately 10% of the Hurricane Katrina victims and 50% of the Hurricane Sandy victims had insurance to cover their flood losses. Consequently, both their homes and lives were left in ruins in the wake of the storms. Nationwide, only approximately 7% of homeowners have insurance that covers flood losses even though the risk of flooding is only increasing as coastal areas continue to be developed and …

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Law In Regression? Impacts Of Quantitative Research On Law And Regulation, David C. Donald Dec 2014

Law In Regression? Impacts Of Quantitative Research On Law And Regulation, David C. Donald

David C. Donald

Quantitative research (QR) has undeniably improved the quality of law- and rulemaking, but it can also present risks for these activities. On the one hand, replacing anecdotal assertions regarding behavior or the effects of rules in an area to be regulated with objective, statistical evidence has advanced the quality of regulatory discourse. On the other hand, because the construction of such evidence often depends on bringing the complex realities of both human behavior and rules designed to govern it into simple, quantified variables, QR findings can at times camouflage complexity, masking real problems. Deceptively objective findings can in this way …

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Egoism, Altruism, And Market Illusions: The Limits Of Law And Economics, Jeffrey L. Harrison Nov 2014

Egoism, Altruism, And Market Illusions: The Limits Of Law And Economics, Jeffrey L. Harrison

Jeffrey L Harrison

The primary objective of this Article is to question assumptions in order to show that the conventional economic approach to law and public policy has limited value. The arguments are founded on empirical evidence drawn from many fields of study. An underlying theme is that the current application of economic analysis to law should be regarded as an interim step toward the integration of law with the behavioral, natural, and social sciences. Part I describes the two forms of the self-interest assumption more completely. This examination reveals that economics and the separate study of law and economics are caught in …

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