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Full-Text Articles in Law
Antitrust And Wealth Inequality, Daniel Crane
Antitrust And Wealth Inequality, Daniel Crane
Articles
In recent years, progressive public intellectuals and prominent scholars have asserted that monopoly power lies at the root of wealth inequality and that increases in antitrust enforcement are necessary to stem its rising tide. This claim is misguided. Exercises of market power have complex, crosscutting effects that undermine the generality of the monopoly regressivity claim. Contrary to what the regressivity critics assume, wealthy shareholders and senior corporate executives do not capture the preponderance of monopoly rents. Such profits are broadly shared within and dissipated outside the firm. Further, many of the subjects of antitrust law are middle-class professionals, sole proprietors, …
States Of Bankruptcy, David A. Skeel Jr.
States Of Bankruptcy, David A. Skeel Jr.
All Faculty Scholarship
In the past several years, many states’ financial condition has been so precarious that some observers have predicted that one or more might default. As the crisis persisted, a very unlikely word crept into these conversations: bankruptcy. Should Congress provide a bankruptcy option for states, or would bankruptcy be a mistake? The goal of this Article is to carefully vet this question, using all of the theoretical, empirical and historical tools currently available. The discussion is structured as a “case” for bankruptcy, rather than an “on the one hand, on the other hand” assessment. But it seeks to be scrupulously …
State Bankruptcy From The Ground Up, David A. Skeel Jr.
State Bankruptcy From The Ground Up, David A. Skeel Jr.
All Faculty Scholarship
After a brief, high profile debate, proposals to create a new bankruptcy framework for states dropped from sight in Washington in early 2011. With the debate’s initial passions having cooled, at least for a time, we can now consider state bankruptcy, as well as other responses to states’ fiscal crisis, a bit more quietly and carefully. In this Article, I begin by briefly outlining a theoretical and practical case for state bankruptcy. Because I have developed these arguments in much more detail in companion work, I will keep the discussion comparatively brief. My particular concern here is, as the title …
Intellectual Liability, Daniel A. Crane
Intellectual Liability, Daniel A. Crane
Articles
Intellectual property is increasingly a misnomer since the right to exclude is the defining characteristic of property and incentives to engage in inventive and creative activity are increasingly being granted in the form of liability rights (which allow the holder of the right to collect a royalty from users) rather than property rights (which allow the holder of the right to exclude others from using the invention or creation). Much of this recent reorientation in the direction of liability rules arises from a concern over holdout or monopoly power in intellectual property. The debate over whether liability rules or property …
Linkline's Institutional Suspicions, Daniel A. Crane
Linkline's Institutional Suspicions, Daniel A. Crane
Articles
Antitrust scholars are having fun again. Not so long ago, they were the poor, redheaded stepchildren of the legal academy, either pining for the older days of rigorous antitrust enforcement or trying to kill off what was left of the enterprise. Other law professors felt sorry for them, ignored them, or both. But now antitrust is making a comeback of sorts. In one heady week in May of 2009, a front-page story in the New York Times reported the dramatic decision of Christine Varney-the Obama Administration's new Antitrust Division head at the Department of Justice-to jettison the entire report on …
Obama's Antitrust Agenda, Daniel A. Crane
Obama's Antitrust Agenda, Daniel A. Crane
Articles
Antitrust law is back in vogue. After years in the wilderness, antitrust enforcement has reemerged as a hot topic in Washington and in the legal academy. In one heady week inMay of 2009, a frontpage story in the New York Times reported the dramatic decision of Christine Varney —theObama administration’s new AntitrustDivision head—to jettison the entire report onmonopolization offenses released by the Bush JusticeDepartment just eightmonths earlier. In a speech before the Center for American Progress, Varney announced that the Justice Department is “committed to aggressively pursuing enforcement of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.” As if to prove that …
The Tragedy Of The Anticommons: Property In The Transition From Marx To Markets, Michael A. Heller
The Tragedy Of The Anticommons: Property In The Transition From Marx To Markets, Michael A. Heller
Articles
Why are many storefronts in Moscow empty, while street kiosks in front are full of goods? In this Article, Professor Heller develops a theory of anticommons property to help explain the puzzle of empty storefronts and full kiosks. Anticommons property can be understood as the mirror image of commons property. By definition, in a commons, multiple owners are each endowed with the privilege to use a given resource, and no one has the right to exclude another When too many owners hold such privileges of use, the resource is prone to overuse - a tragedy of the commons. Depleted fisheries …
Risk And Design, James E. Krier
Risk And Design, James E. Krier
Articles
Risk springs from uncertainty,' uncertainty invites error, and, since error can be costly, we would prefer to avoid it (provided, of course, that avoidance is not more costly yet). While there is much in the Noll and Krier article2 about judgmental error under conditions of risk and uncertainty, there is little about ways to avoid it. So avoidance-more accurately, minimization-of error costs is the topic I want to address very briefly and partially here.
The Un-Easy Case For Technological Optimism, James E. Krier, Clayton P. Gillette
The Un-Easy Case For Technological Optimism, James E. Krier, Clayton P. Gillette
Articles
"Technological optimism" is a term of art, an article of faith, and a theory of politics. It is a view that pervades modem attitudes, yet gets little explicit attention. For a brief period the situation was otherwise. In the early 1970s, the optimistic outlook figured prominently in an important debate about nothing less than the future of the world. Technological optimism won. The outcome was unsurprising, given the nature of the argument. On one side of the debate was a group of self-proclaimed Malthusians who foresaw an impending period of stark scarcity unless relatively drastic remedial steps were quickly taken; …