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Full-Text Articles in Law
Antibiotic Resistance, Jessica Litman
Antibiotic Resistance, Jessica Litman
Law & Economics Working Papers
In this essay, written for the 30th Anniversary of Cardozo’s Arts and Entertainment Law Journal, I revisit the ruinous litigation strategy copyright owners pursued after Napster to secure control of the market for personal uses of copyrighted works, which I wrote about ten years ago in War Stories, 20 Cardozo Arts & Ent. L.J. 337 (2002). The litigation campaign had effects that copyright owners now have reason to regret. Medical experts tell us that powerful antibiotics are highly effective in killing off both good and bad bacteria, but at a significant risk. Bugs that survive the treatment grow bigger, stronger, …
Search Neutrality As An Antitrust Principle, Daniel A. Crane
Search Neutrality As An Antitrust Principle, Daniel A. Crane
Law & Economics Working Papers
Google's perceived dominance in Internet search, and the perception that Google exploits this dominance to favor its own websites and service, has led to call for a mandatory legal requirement of "search neutrality." This essay argues that a general principle of search neutrality ignores the realities of Internet search and would stymie search innovation.
The Effective Tax Rate Of The Largest Us And Eu Multinationals, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Yaron Lahav
The Effective Tax Rate Of The Largest Us And Eu Multinationals, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Yaron Lahav
Law & Economics Working Papers
This paper compares the effective tax rates of the 100 largest US multinationals to the 100 largest EU multinationals for the period 2001-2010, based on financial disclosures. The paper finds that despite the higher US statutory rate the effective tax rates are comparable and that EU multinationals tend to have a higher effective tax rate. The likely explanation is that EU corporate taxes have a broader base. The paper concludes that current US tax law does not subject US based multinationals to a competitive disadvantage against their EU based competitors.
The Unaffordable Health Act – A Response To Professors Bagley And Horwitz, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn
The Unaffordable Health Act – A Response To Professors Bagley And Horwitz, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn
Law & Economics Working Papers
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 has stirred considerable controversy. In the public debate over the program, many of its proponents defended it by focusing on what is sometimes called the “free-rider” problem. In a prior article, we contended that the free-rider problem has been greatly exaggerated and was not likely to have been a significant factor in the congressional decision to adopt the Act. We maintained that the free-rider issue is a red herring that was advanced to trigger an emotional attraction for the Act and distract attention from the actual issues that favor and disfavor …
Why It’S Called The Affordable Care Act, Nicholas Bagley
Why It’S Called The Affordable Care Act, Nicholas Bagley
Law & Economics Working Papers
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (“ACA”) raises numerous policy and legal issues, but none have attracted as much attention from lawyers as Section 1501. This provision, titled “Maintenance of Mini-mum Essential Coverage,” but better known as the “individual mandate,” requires most Americans to obtain health insurance for themselves and their dependents by 2014. 1 We are dismayed that the narrow issue of the mandate and the narrower issue of free riding have garnered so much attention when our nation’s health-care system suffers from countless problems. By im-proving quality, controlling costs, and extending coverage to the uninsured, …
Exclusion From Income Of Compensation For Services And Pooling Of Labor Occurring In A Noncommercial Setting, Douglas A. Kahn
Exclusion From Income Of Compensation For Services And Pooling Of Labor Occurring In A Noncommercial Setting, Douglas A. Kahn
Law & Economics Working Papers
Compensation for services, regardless of the form, constitutes income to the recipient. Consequently, the exchange of services by two individuals is treated as income to each. However, there are numerous examples of an exchange of services that the IRS has never sought to tax. The most common example is an exchange of services by a married couple who divide the household chores between them. The focus of this article is to propose a principled reason for not taxing those exchanges and to explore the limits of that exclusion. The author contends that the income tax operates exclusively on commercial transactions, …
Real Time Audit – It Is The Time To Act?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Oz Halabi
Real Time Audit – It Is The Time To Act?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Oz Halabi
Law & Economics Working Papers
The U.S. is facing one of its hardest economic crises. Its economy has not recovered from the 2008 downturn, and the light at the end of the tunnel is far, far away. The government and the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) are seeking revenue sources in order to reduce its budget deficit. However, raising the income tax rates is politically difficult and may lead to further loss of jobs. In this political situation, it is important to try to find ways to raise more revenue without raising tax rates. One possibility of doing so is “real time audit”: Auditing transactions when …
Money On The Table: Why The U.S. Should Tax Inbound Capital Gains, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Money On The Table: Why The U.S. Should Tax Inbound Capital Gains, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Law & Economics Working Papers
In 1992, Chairman Rostenkowski introduced legislation that imposed US capital gains tax on foreign sellers of large blocks of shares (10 percent or more) in US corporations. The legislation was not a treaty override, although it added an anti-treaty shopping provision similar to those adopted for the branch profit tax in 1986. It also had anti-abuse provisions that addressed holding company structures. Today, the US faces a large budget deficit and seeks to impose higher burdens on its own multinationals. While that is also justified, there is no reason to let foreigners off the hook, especially since there is much …
Toward Transatlantic Convergence In Financial Regulation, Hwa-Jin Kim
Toward Transatlantic Convergence In Financial Regulation, Hwa-Jin Kim
Law & Economics Working Papers
This Article reviews the historical background of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 along with the developments in the markets that led to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. It analyzes the discussions on the Volcker Rule in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 from a comparative perspective. It shows how the reform in the United States may impact financial institutions and markets in other jurisdictions. Germany and Switzerland, where universal banking is the hallmark of the financial services industry, are the primary jurisdictions of interest. After taking a historical and political look at the regulation of …
Ability To Pay, John A. E. Pottow
Ability To Pay, John A. E. Pottow
Law & Economics Working Papers
The landmark Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 transforms the landscape of consumer credit in the United States. Many of the changes have been high-profile and accordingly attracted considerable media and scholarly attention, most notably the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). But when the dust settled, one profoundly transformative innovation that did not garner the same outrage as CFPA did get into the law: imposing upon lenders a duty to assure borrowers’ ability to repay. Ensuring a borrower’s ability to repay is not an entirely unprecedented legal concept, to be sure, but its wholesale embrace by Dodd-Frank represents a …
Preferences For Banking And Payment Services Among Low- And Moderate-Income Households, Michael S. Barr, Jane Dokko, Eleanor Feit
Preferences For Banking And Payment Services Among Low- And Moderate-Income Households, Michael S. Barr, Jane Dokko, Eleanor Feit
Law & Economics Working Papers
This paper characterizes the features of an account-based payment card – including bank debit cards, prepaid debit cards, and payroll cards – that elicit a high take-rate among low- and moderate-income (LMI) households, particularly those without bank accounts. We apply marketing research techniques, specifically choice modeling, to identify the design of a specific financial services product for LMI households, who often face difficulties maintaining standard bank accounts but need banking services. After monthly cost, we find that, on average, non-monetary features of a payment card, such as the availability of federal protection and the type of card, are factors LMI …
Free Rider – A Justification For Mandatory Medical Insurance Under Health Care Reform?, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn
Free Rider – A Justification For Mandatory Medical Insurance Under Health Care Reform?, Douglas A. Kahn, Jeffrey H. Kahn
Law & Economics Working Papers
Section 1501 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act added section 5000A to the Internal Revenue Code to require most individuals in the United States to purchase a minimum level of medical insurance. This requirement, which is enforced by a penalty imposed on those who fail to comply, is sometimes referred to as the “individual mandate.” A frequently stated defense of the individual mandate is that there are a vast number of persons who do not purchase medical insurance and then obtain free medical care when the need arises, and the individual mandate will require those persons (often referred …
Rethinking Merger Efficiencies, Daniel A. Crane
Rethinking Merger Efficiencies, Daniel A. Crane
Law & Economics Working Papers
The two leading merger systems—those of the United States and the European Union—treat the potential benefits and risks of mergers asymmetrically. Both systems require considerably greater proof of efficiencies than they do of potential harms if the efficiencies are to offset concerns over the accumulation or exercise of market power. The implicit asymmetry principle has important systemic effects for merger control. Not only does it stand in the way of some socially desirable mergers, but it may indirectly facilitate the clearance of some socially undesirable mergers. Neither system explicitly justifies this asymmetry and none of the plausible justifications is normatively …