Law Commons^™

On The Misuse Of The Nash Bargaining Solution In Law And Economics, Abraham L. Wickelgren

ExpressO

Bargaining plays a very important role in a great deal of legal scholarship, particularly in law and economics scholarship. Scholars often assume that the Nash bargaining solution determines the bargaining outcome, where the parties equally split the joint benefit created by the agreement. This solution, however, is inappropriate when parties have outside options, alternatives that only provide a payoff if the bargainer terminates the original bargaining. Most legal bargaining problems involve outside options. This article explains why the Nash bargaining solution generates an inappropriate outcome in this situation. Then, it examines several different prior articles that have used the Nash …

A Public Choice Theory Of Criminal Procedure, Vikramaditya S. Khanna, Keith N. Hylton

ExpressO

We provide a more persuasive justification for the pro-defendant bias in Anglo-American criminal procedure than the most commonly forwarded justifications to date. The most commonly forwarded rationale for the pro-defendant bias is that the costs of false convictions – specifically, the sanctioning and deterrence costs associated with the erroneous imposition of criminal sanctions – are greater than the costs of false acquittals. We argue that this rationale provides at best a partial justification for the extent of pro-defendant procedural rules. Under our alternative justification, pro-defendant protections serve primarily as constraints on the costs associated with improper enforcement or rent seeking …

Securing Truth For Power: Informational Strategy And Regulatory Policy Making, Cary Coglianese

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Secrets And Liens: Verification And Measurement In Commercial Finance Law, Jonathan C. Lipson

ExpressO

This article argues that commercial finance law increasingly uses contract rules to displace property rules, especially as these rules pertain to verifying and measuring property interests. In this context, verification simply means confirming the existence of a property interest, such as a lien or security interest. Measurement means determining the relationships of various property interests to one another (i.e., the priority of interests).

Historically, commercial finance law – in particular the Uniform Commercial Code, which governs loans secured by personal property – provided that something would be treated as “property” only if its property character was fairly easy to discover. …

Known Unknowns: The Delusion Of Terrorism Insurance, Michelle Boardman

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

On The Alienation Of Legal Claims, Michael Abramowicz

ExpressO

Courts have become increasingly skeptical about rules restricting plaintiffs’ ability to sell legal claims, and legal commentators have argued that markets for claims would be efficient, moving claims to those who can prosecute them most efficiently. Claim sales intuitively might appear to present a clash of economic and philosophical arguments, with perceived efficiency benefits coming at the expense of societal commitments to values other than efficiency. In this Article, Professor Abramowicz argues that economic and philosophical arguments do point in opposite directions, but in the reverse directions from what one might expect. A range of philosophical and other noneconomic considerations, …

In Defense Of Paid Family Leave, Gillian Lester

ExpressO

In this article I defend state provision of paid family leave. Such a program would allow workers to take compensated time off work to care for a newborn infant or ill family member. I normatively ground my claim in the argument that paid leave would allow women, who have historically performed a disproportionate share of family caregiving labor, to participate more fully in the paid workforce. This enhancement in labor force participation, I argue, would in turn increase women's independence and capacity to determine the conditions of their lives. In taking this position, I distinguish myself from those who would …