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Full-Text Articles in Law
Low Probability/High Consequence Events: Dilemmas Of Damage Compensation, Richard O. Lempert
Low Probability/High Consequence Events: Dilemmas Of Damage Compensation, Richard O. Lempert
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This article was prepared for a Clifford Symposium which challenged paper writers to imagine how our system of tort compensation might look in the year 2020. This paper responds to an aspect of the general challenge: to imagine a tort recovery system which would deal adequately with rare and catastrophic events. To get a handle on this problem, the paper looks closely at how the legal system compensated damages attendant on four recent events that might be considered “rare and catastrophic” – Three Mile Island, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the Exxon Valdez oil spill. In no case did the system …
Paying To Save: Tax Withholding And Asset Allocation Among Low- And Moderate-Income Taxpayers, Michael S. Barr, Jane Dokko
Paying To Save: Tax Withholding And Asset Allocation Among Low- And Moderate-Income Taxpayers, Michael S. Barr, Jane Dokko
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
We analyze the phenomenon that low- and moderate-income (LMI) tax filers exhibit a “preference for over-withholding” their taxes, a measure we derive from a unique set of questions administered in a dataset of 1,003 households, which we collected through the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan. We argue that the relationship between their withholding preference and portfolio allocation across liquid and illiquid assets is consistent with models with present-biased preferences, and that individuals exhibit self-control problems when making their consumption and saving decisions. Our results support a model in which individuals use commitment devices to constrain their consumption. …