Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
-
- Economics (16)
- Social and Behavioral Sciences (16)
- Banking and Finance Law (10)
- Business Organizations Law (7)
- Contracts (6)
-
- Criminal Law (5)
- Criminal Procedure (5)
- International Law (5)
- Bankruptcy Law (3)
- Estates and Trusts (3)
- Law and Society (2)
- Property Law and Real Estate (2)
- Public Law and Legal Theory (2)
- Taxation-State and Local (2)
- Torts (2)
- Commercial Law (1)
- Health Law and Policy (1)
- Human Rights Law (1)
- Indigenous, Indian, and Aboriginal Law (1)
- Insurance Law (1)
- International Trade Law (1)
- Jurisdiction (1)
- Labor and Employment Law (1)
- Law and Politics (1)
- Legal Education (1)
- Legal History (1)
- Legal Profession (1)
- Legislation (1)
- Publication Year
Articles 31 - 56 of 56
Full-Text Articles in Law
Corporate Defendants And The Protections Of Criminal Procedure: An Economic Analysis, Vikramaditya S. Khanna
Corporate Defendants And The Protections Of Criminal Procedure: An Economic Analysis, Vikramaditya S. Khanna
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
Corporations are frequently treated as “persons” under the law. One of the fundamental questions associated with this treatment is whether corporations should receive the same Constitutional protections and guarantees as natural persons. In particular, should corporations receive the Constitutional protections of Criminal Procedure? After all, corporations cannot be sent to jail so the sanctions they face are essentially the same as in civil proceedings. If so, then why not have the same procedural protections for corporate defendants in civil and criminal cases? Little scholarly analysis has focused on this issue from an economic perspective and this article aims to fill …
The Market For Criminal Justice: Federalism, Crime Control And Jurisdictional Competition, Doron Teichman
The Market For Criminal Justice: Federalism, Crime Control And Jurisdictional Competition, Doron Teichman
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
For the most part, the United States has a decentralized criminal justice system. State legislatures define the majority of crimes and set out the punishments for those crimes. In addition, the enforcement of criminal laws lies, in most cases, in the hands of local law enforcement agencies. This article points out how this decentralized structure drives local jurisdictions to harshen their criminal justice system in order to displace crime to neighboring jurisdictions. More precisely, local jurisdictions can attempt to displace crime in two distinct ways. First, they can raise the expected sanction to a level that is higher than that …
Sex, Shame, And The Law: An Economic Perspective On Megan's Law, Doron Teichman
Sex, Shame, And The Law: An Economic Perspective On Megan's Law, Doron Teichman
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This Article focuses on the question, how should policymakers aiming to minimize the cost of sanctioning utilize legal and nonlegal sanctions when designing a system of criminal sanctions. After presenting the general economic case for the use of nonlegal sanctions the article turns to present a model of shaming, which unlike existing models, incorporates the endogenous effects of legal and nonlegal sanctions. This model demonstrates that tailoring an efficient regime that combines legal and nonlegal sanctions might be more difficult than previously perceived by law and economics scholars. A specific case study presented in this article is of the current …
Economic Theories Of Bundling And Their Policy Implications In Abuse Cases: An Assessment In Light Of The Mircrosoft Case, Kai-Uwe Kuhn
Economic Theories Of Bundling And Their Policy Implications In Abuse Cases: An Assessment In Light Of The Mircrosoft Case, Kai-Uwe Kuhn
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
No abstract provided.
Banking The Poor: Policies To Bring Low-Income Americans Into The Financial Mainstream, Michael S. Barr
Banking The Poor: Policies To Bring Low-Income Americans Into The Financial Mainstream, Michael S. Barr
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
Low-income households in the United States often lack access to bank accounts and face high costs for conducting basic financial transactions through check cashers and other alternative financial service providers. These families find it more difficult to save and plan financially for the future. Living paycheck to paycheck leaves them vulnerable to medical or job emergencies that may endanger their financial stability, and lack of longer-term savings undermines their ability to improve skills, purchase a home, or send their children to college. High-cost financial services and inadequate access to bank accounts may undermine widely-shared societal goals of reducing poverty, moving …
Should Issuers Be On The Hook For Laddering? An Empirical Analysis Of The Ipo Market Manipulation Litigation, Stephen Choi, Adam C. Pritchard
Should Issuers Be On The Hook For Laddering? An Empirical Analysis Of The Ipo Market Manipulation Litigation, Stephen Choi, Adam C. Pritchard
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
nder Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933, firms making public offerings of securities are strictly liable to investors for any material misstatements in the registration statements that accompany those offers. This strict liability regime is premised on the notion that issuers are best placed to avoid misstatements in the registration statement. Section 11 gives other potential defendants a “due diligence” defense to reflect their lesser ability to ensure the accuracy of the registration statement. The recent spate of “laddering” lawsuits alleging manipulation of the aftermarket for certain stocks issued in “hot” initial public offerings (IPOs) presents a role-reversal …
International Tax As International Law, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
International Tax As International Law, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
The purpose of this article is to introduce to the international lawyer the somewhat different set of categories (e.g., residence and source rather than nationality and territoriality) employed by international tax lawyers, and explain the reasons for some of the differences. At the same time, it attempts to persuade practicing international tax lawyers and international tax academics that their field is indeed part of international law, and that it would help them to think of it this way. For example, knowledge of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties would help international tax lawyers in interpreting tax treaties, and …
The Pitfalls Of International Integration: A Comment On The Bush Proposal And Its Aftermath, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
The Pitfalls Of International Integration: A Comment On The Bush Proposal And Its Aftermath, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
In January 2003, the Bus Administration proposed a new system for taxing corporate dividends, under which domestic shareholders in U.S. corporations would not be taxed on dividends they received, provided the corporation distributed these dividends out of after-tax earnings (the “Bush Proposal”). The Bush Proposal was introduced in Congress in February 27,2003. Ultimately, however, Congress balked at enacting full-fledged dividend exemption. Instead, in the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (“JGTRRA”) as enacted on May 28, 2003, a lower rate of 15% was adopted for dividends paid by domestic and certain foreign corporations, and the capital gains …
Corporations, Society And The State: A Defense Of The Corporate Tax, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Corporations, Society And The State: A Defense Of The Corporate Tax, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This article attempts to provide the first comprehensive rationale for defending the current corporate income tax. It argues that the usual reasons given for the tax (primarily as an indirect way of taxing shareholders, or alternatively as a form of benefit tax) are inadequate. It then explains what the original rationale to adopt this tax was in 1909, namely to regulate managerial power, and that this rationale stems from the real view of the corporation, which was the dominant view throughout the many transformations underwent by the corporate form from Roman times to the present. Turning to normative argument, the …
Banking The Poor, Michael S. Barr
Banking The Poor, Michael S. Barr
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
Low-income households often lack access to banking accounts and face high costs for transacting basic financial services through check cashers and other alternative financial service providers. These families find it more difficult to save and plan financially for the future. Living paycheck to paycheck leaves them vulnerable to medical or job emergencies that may endanger their financial stability, and lack of longer-term savings undermines their ability to improve skills, purchase a home, or send their children to college. Additionally, high cost financial services and inadequate access to bank accounts may undermine widely-shared societal goals of reducing poverty, moving families from …
Credible Coercion, Oren Bar-Gill, Omri Ben-Shahar
Credible Coercion, Oren Bar-Gill, Omri Ben-Shahar
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
The ideal of individual liberty and autonomy requires that society provide relief against coercion. In the law, this requirement is often translated into rules that operate “post-coercion” to undo the legal consequences of acts and promises extracted under duress. This Article argues that these ex-post anti-duress measures, rather than helping the coerced party, might in fact hurt her. When coercion is credible—when a credible threat to inflict an even worse outcome underlies the surrender of the coerced party—ex post relief will only induce the strong party to execute the threatened outcome, to the detriment of the coerced party. Anti-duress relief …
A Comparative Empirical Investigation Of Agency And Market Theories Of Insider Trading, Laura N. Beny
A Comparative Empirical Investigation Of Agency And Market Theories Of Insider Trading, Laura N. Beny
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
The paper summarizes various agency cost and market theories of insider trading propounded over the course of the perennial law and economics debate over insider trading. The paper then suggests three testable hypotheses regarding the relationship between insider trading laws and several measures of financial performance. Using international data and alternative regression specifications, the paper finds that more stringent insider trading laws and enforcement are generally associated with greater ownership dispersion, greater stock price accuracy and greater stock market liquidity. This set of findings provides empirical support to theoretical arguments in favor of more stringent insider trading legislation and enforcement.
"Agreeing To Disagree": Filling Gaps In Deliberately Incomplete Contracts, Omri Ben-Shahar
"Agreeing To Disagree": Filling Gaps In Deliberately Incomplete Contracts, Omri Ben-Shahar
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This Article develops a new standard for gap filling in incomplete contracts. It focuses on an important class of situations in which parties leave their agreement deliberately incomplete, with the intent to further negotiate and resolve the remaining issues. In these situations, neither the traditional no-enforcement result nor the usual gap filling approaches accord with the parties’ partial consent. Instead, the Article develops the concept of pro-defendant gap-fillers, under which each party is granted an option to enforce the transaction supplemented with terms most favorable (within reason) to the other party. A deliberately incomplete contract with pro-defendant gap fillers transforms …
Politics And The Business Corporation, Robert H. Sitkoff
Politics And The Business Corporation, Robert H. Sitkoff
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This essay explores the policy bases for, and the political economy of, the law's long-standing regulation of corporate political speech. The essay has three parts. First, it contends that the conventional justifications for regulating corporate interventions in politics -- that corporate donations unnaturally skew the political discourse (bad politics) and that corporate political donations harm shareholders (agency costs) -- assume irrational investors and substantial capital market inefficiency. Drawing on public choice theory, the essay also explores the aim of retarding rent-seeking as an alternative justification for regulating corporate interventions in politics. Second, the essay reexamines the history of the regulation …
Dying To Get Out Of Debt: Consumer Insolvency Law And Suicide In Japan, Mark West
Dying To Get Out Of Debt: Consumer Insolvency Law And Suicide In Japan, Mark West
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This Article explores the complex relation between consumer insolvency law and suicide in Japan, where bankruptcies and suicides have increased dramatically in recent years. The statistical and interview evidence, some of which relates to the creation of a relatively efficient and socially acceptable insolvency mechanism in 2001, suggests that law is at least indirectly relevant to decisions to take one’s own life. Law can bring about debt control and stigma mitigation, each of which can lead to lower levels of stress and depression, each of which can lead to lower suicide rates. Still, responses to the law, even in relatively …
Employment Market Institutions And Japanese Working Hours, Mark West
Employment Market Institutions And Japanese Working Hours, Mark West
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
Why do Japanese workers work such long hours? Beginning with a series of cases in the 1950s, Japanese courts drastically curtailed firms’ abilities to dismiss workers. As a consequence of the inability to dismiss workers legally, large Japanese firms hired a smaller number of workers than were necessary to fulfill capacity without overtime. Employers rely on the working hours of this undersized cadre of workers, carefully screened to rule out the slothful, as a buffer. In bad times, the size of the work force makes dismissal unnecessary. In good times, workers are forced to work long hours. While these court …
Trust Law, Corporate Law, And Capital Market Efficiency, Robert H. Sitkoff
Trust Law, Corporate Law, And Capital Market Efficiency, Robert H. Sitkoff
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
In both the publicly-traded corporation and the private donative trust a crucial task is to minimize the agency costs that arise from the separation of risk-bearing and management. But where the law of corporate governance evolved in the shadow of capital-market checks on agency costs, trust governance did not. Thus, even more than that of close corporations, the law and study of private trusts offers an illuminating counterfactual -- a control, as it were - for a playful thought experiment about the importance of capital market efficiency to the law and study of public corporations. The animating idea for this …
Measuring Recovery For Non-Contractual Investment, Omri Ben-Shahar, Robert A. Mikos
Measuring Recovery For Non-Contractual Investment, Omri Ben-Shahar, Robert A. Mikos
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
Parties who make investments that generate externalities may sometimes recover from the beneficiaries, even in the absence of contract. Previous scholarship has shown that granting recovery, based on either the cost of the investment or the benefit it confers, can provide optimal incentives to invest. However, this article demonstrates that the law often awards recovery that is neither purely cost-based, nor purely benefit-based, and instead equals either the greater-of or lesser-of the two measures. These hybrid approaches to recovery distort incentives to invest. The article demonstrates the prevalence of these practices, and explores informational and related reasons why they emerge. …
An Agency Costs Theory Of Trust Law, Robert H. Sitkoff
An Agency Costs Theory Of Trust Law, Robert H. Sitkoff
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This Article develops an agency costs theory of the law of private trusts, focusing chiefly on donative trusts. The agency costs approach offers fresh insights into recurring problems in trust law including, among others, modification and termination, settlor standing, fiduciary litigation, trust-investment law and the duty of impartiality, trustee removal, the role of so-called trust "protectors," and spendthrift trusts. The normative claim is that the law of trusts should minimize the agency costs inherent in locating managerial authority with the trustee and the residual claim with the beneficiaries, but only to the extent that doing so is consistent with the …
What Counts As Fraud? An Empirical Study Of Motions To Dismiss Under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, Adam C. Pritchard, Hillary Sale
What Counts As Fraud? An Empirical Study Of Motions To Dismiss Under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, Adam C. Pritchard, Hillary Sale
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This article presents the findings of a study of the resolution of motions to dismiss securities fraud lawsuits since the passage of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act in 1995. Our sample consists of decisions on motions to dismiss in securities class actions by district and appellate courts in the Second and Ninth Circuits for cases filed after the passage of the Reform Act to the end of 2002. These circuits are the leading circuits for the filing of securities class actions and are generally recognized as representing two ends of the securities class action spectrum. Post-PSLRA, the Second Circuit …
Following The Man On The Clapham Omnibus: Social Science Evidence In Malpractice Litigation, Richard O. Lempert
Following The Man On The Clapham Omnibus: Social Science Evidence In Malpractice Litigation, Richard O. Lempert
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This article responds to proposals to admit statistical evidence from empirical studies of actual health care practices to prove prevailing health practice standards in malpractice litigation by arguing that the case for doing so has numerous weaknesses that advocates of admitting such data commonly ignore. A fundamental concern is that the standard of practice defense co-evolved with prevailing modes of proof and might have been different had proof through experts not allowed for an aspirational as well as an empirical element to reach the jury. The article also argues that generating reliable statistical evidence of standard medical practice can be …
Legal Transitions, Rational Expectations, And Legal Progress, Kyle D. Logue
Legal Transitions, Rational Expectations, And Legal Progress, Kyle D. Logue
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This paper was written for a symposium on legal transitions. The central question in the transitions literature is whether or to what extent the government should provide compensation for (or seek in some way to ameliorate) the losses of wealth occasioned by unexpected changes in the law or social policy. This Article argues that the prevailing normative framework for evaluating legal transitions - the consequentialist or economic framework - relies critically on two assumptions: the assumption that private parties (whose incentives are sought to be affected by the choice of transition norm) will behave with rational expectations and the assumption …
Against Preemption: How Federalism Can Improve The National Legislative Process, Roderick Hills
Against Preemption: How Federalism Can Improve The National Legislative Process, Roderick Hills
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
How easily should courts infer that federal statutes preempt state law? An ongoing debate exists on the question in Congress and among scholars and judges. One side calls for judges to protect federalism by adopting a rule of statutory construction that would bar preemption absent a clear statement of preemptive intent. Opponents argue against such a "clear statement" rule by arguing that state control over preemptable topics is often presumptively inefficient, because common-law juries lack expertise and because states are prone to imposing external costs on their neighbors. This article sidesteps these debates over preemption and instead argues that, quite …
Insuring Against Terrorism And Crime, Saul Levmore, Kyle D. Logue
Insuring Against Terrorism And Crime, Saul Levmore, Kyle D. Logue
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
The attacks of September 11th produced staggering losses of life and property. They also brought forth substantial private insurance payouts, as well as federal relief for the City of New York and for the families of individuals who perished on that day. The losses suffered in and after the attacks, and the structure of the relief effort, have raised questions about the availability of insurance against terrorism, the role of government in providing for, subsidizing, or ensuring the presence of such insurance, and the interaction between relief and the incentives for future precaution taking. In response to such losses, and …
Behavioral Economics And The Sec, Stephen Choi, Adam C. Pritchard
Behavioral Economics And The Sec, Stephen Choi, Adam C. Pritchard
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
Investors face myriad investment alternatives and seemingly limitless information concerning those alternatives.Not surprisingly, many commentators contend that investors frequently fall short of the ideal investor posited by the rational actor model. Investors are plagued with a variety of behavioral biases (such as, among others, the hindsight bias, the availability bias, loss aversion, and overconfidence). Even securities market institutions and intermediaries may suffer from biases, led astray by groupthink and overconfidence. The question remains whether regulators should focus on such biases in formulating policy. An omnipotent regulatory decisionmaker would certainly improve on flawed investor decisionmaking. The alternative we face, however, is …
Pain-And-Suffering Damages In Tort Law: Revisiting The Theoretical Framework And The Empirical Evidence, Ronen Avraham
Pain-And-Suffering Damages In Tort Law: Revisiting The Theoretical Framework And The Empirical Evidence, Ronen Avraham
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
Should there be pain-and-suffering damages in tort law? Most legal economists who wrote on the subject that there should not be pain-and-suffering damages in tort law. A minority of scholars thought the decision of whether tort law should provide pain-and-suffering damages is an empirical, or an experimental, question that cannot be armchair-theorized. Yet, all scholars who have done empirical or experimental work to explore the desirability of pain-and-suffering damages reached the conclusion that it is undesirable. In this paper I argue that the majority view cannot serve as a policy-making aid. I side with the minority of scholars who argue …