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Full-Text Articles in Law
Why Aim Law Toward Human Survival, John William Draper
Why Aim Law Toward Human Survival, John William Draper
Librarian Scholarship at Penn Law
Our legal system is contributing to humanity’s demise by failing to take account of our species’ situation. For example, in some cases law works against life and supports interests such as liberty or profit maximization.
If we do not act, science tells us that humanity bears a significant (and growing) risk of catastrophic failure. The significant risk inherent in the status quo is unacceptable and requires a response. We must act. It is getting hotter. When we decide to act, we need to make the right choice.
There is no better choice. You and all your relatives have rights. The …
Is The Digital Economy Too Concentrated?, Jonathan Klick
Is The Digital Economy Too Concentrated?, Jonathan Klick
All Faculty Scholarship
Concentration in the digital economy in the United States has sparked loud criticism and spurred calls for wide-ranging reforms. These reforms include everything from increased enforcement of existing antitrust laws, such as challenging more mergers and breaking up firms, to an abandonment of the consumer welfare standard. Critics cite corruption and more systemic public choice problems, while others invoke the populist origins of antitrust to slay the digital Goliaths. On the other side, there is skepticism regarding these arguments. This chapter continues much of that skepticism.
Development On A Cracked Foundation: How The Incomplete Nature Of New Deal Labor Reform Presaged Its Ultimate Decline, Leo E. Strine Jr.
Development On A Cracked Foundation: How The Incomplete Nature Of New Deal Labor Reform Presaged Its Ultimate Decline, Leo E. Strine Jr.
All Faculty Scholarship
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Margaret Levi, and Barry R. Weingast’s excellent essay, Twentieth Century America as a Developing Country, Conflict, Institutional Change and the Evolution of Public Law, celebrates the period during which the National Labor Relations Act facilitated the peaceful resolution of labor disputes and improved the working conditions of American workers. These distinguished authors make a strong case for the essentiality of law in regulating labor relations and the importance of national culture in providing a solid context for the emergence of legal regimes facilitating economic growth and equality. This reply to their essay explores how the New Deal’s failure …
Whither The Regulatory “War On Coal”? Scapegoats, Saviors, And Stock Market Reactions, Cary Coglianese, Daniel E. Walters
Whither The Regulatory “War On Coal”? Scapegoats, Saviors, And Stock Market Reactions, Cary Coglianese, Daniel E. Walters
All Faculty Scholarship
Complaints about excessive economic burdens associated with regulation abound in contemporary political and legal rhetoric. In recent years, perhaps nowhere have these complaints been heard as loudly as in the context of U.S. regulations targeting the use of coal to supply power to the nation’s electricity system, as production levels in the coal industry dropped by nearly half between 2008 and 2016. The coal industry and its political supporters, including the president of the United States, have argued that a suite of air pollution regulations imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama administration seriously undermined coal companies’ …
Preserving Life By Ranking Rights, John William Draper
Preserving Life By Ranking Rights, John William Draper
Librarian Scholarship at Penn Law
Border walls, abortion, and the death penalty are the current battlegrounds of the right to life. We will visit each topic and more in this paper, as we consider ranking groups of constitutional rights.
The enumerated rights of the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments—life, liberty, and property—merit special treatment. They have a deeper and richer history that involves ranking. Ranking life in lexical priority over liberty and property rights protects life first and maximizes safe liberty and property rights in the absence of a significant risk to life. This is not new law; aspects of it …
Hipster Antitrust: New Bottles, Same Old W(H)Ine?, Christopher S. Yoo
Hipster Antitrust: New Bottles, Same Old W(H)Ine?, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
Although the debate over hipster antitrust is often portrayed as something new, experienced observers recognize it as a replay of an old argument that was resolved by the global consensus that antitrust should focus on consumer welfare rather than on the size of firms, the levels of industry concentration, and other considerations. Moreover, the history of the Federal Trade Commission’s Section 5 authority to prevent unfair methods of competition stands as a reminder of the dangers of allowing enforcement policy to be guided by vague and uncertain standards.
Bankruptcy's Home Economics, David A. Skeel Jr.
Bankruptcy's Home Economics, David A. Skeel Jr.
All Faculty Scholarship
This essay began its life as a commentary on Elizabeth Warren’s article “The New Economics of the American Family” at the American Bankruptcy Institute's 25th Anniversary Symposium of the Bankruptcy Code in 2003. (Both the Warren article and my commentary were published in the symposium in the American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review.) “The New Economics of the American Family” was drawn in many respects from then-Professor Warren’s co-authored book, The Two Income Trap. The essay refers to both, though it puts particular emphasis on the article. The essay begins by briefly describing the basic thesis of the article-- …
The Role Of Politics And Policy In Television Regulation, Christopher S. Yoo
The Role Of Politics And Policy In Television Regulation, Christopher S. Yoo
All Faculty Scholarship
This article is a reply to Thomas Hazlett’s commentary on my article entitled, “Rethinking the Commitment to Free, Local Television.” Although politics and public choice theory represent an important approach for analyzing government actions, economic policy still exercises some influence over the regulation of television. On the one hand, we agree that the regulatory preference of free television and local programming is more a reflection of political considerations than economic policy and that the importance of promoting communities of interest over geographic communities, and the potential for new services such as Digital Audio Radio Services to benefit consumers. On the …