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Legal, Policy, And Environmental Scholars Discuss Global Food Systems At Indiana Law Symposium, James Owsley Boyd

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The Indiana University Maurer School of Law and its Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies are hosting scholars from around the country Friday and Saturday (Jan. 19-20) for an interdisciplinary discussion on one of the world’s most prevalent problems—food insecurity.

Data from the World Bank estimate more than 780 million people around the world suffered from chronic hunger in 2022. As climate change affects agricultural production and water accessibility, the problem could worsen in coming years.

“A Fragile Framework: How Global Food Systems Intersect with the International Legal Order, the Environment, and the World’s Populations” will bring together legal, policy, …

Laws, Norms, And The Institutional Analysis And Development Framework, Daniel H. Cole

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Elinor Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework has been described as ‘one of the most developed and sophisticated attempts to use institutional and stakeholder assessment in order to link theory and practice, analysis and policy’. But not all elements in the framework are sufficiently well developed. This paper focuses on one such element: the ‘rules-in-use’ (a.k.a. ‘rules’ or ‘working rules’). Specifically, it begins a long-overdue conversation about relations between formal legal rules and ‘working rules’ by offering a tentative and very simple typology of relations. Type 1: Some formal legal rules equal or approximate the working rules; Type 2: …

President Trump, Trade Policy, And American Grand Strategy: From Common Advantage To Collective Carnage, David P. Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

As a candidate for president of the United States, Donald J. Trump promised to abandon longstanding U.S. approaches to trade and pursue strategies anchored in protectionism and nationalism. This article examines President Trump’s trade policy ideas and proposals and highlights the extent to which he intends to disrupt traditions of U.S. policymaking on trade. The article also analyzes whether domestic and international politics might shift the Trump administration away from a radical approach back towards trade policies that approximate how the United States has managed trade for decades. If such a shift does not occur, the Trump administration’s trade policy …

Advantages Of A Polycentric Approach To Climate Change Policy, Daniel H. Cole

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Lack of progress in global climate negotiations has led scholars to reconsider polycentric approaches to climate policy. Several examples of subglobal mechanisms to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions have been touted, but it remains unclear why they might achieve better climate outcomes than global negotiations alone. Decades of work conducted by researchers associated with the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University have emphasized two chief advantages of polycentric approaches over monocentric ones: they provide more opportunities for experimentation and learning to improve policies over time, and they increase communications and interactions — formal and …

Preventing Government Shutdowns: Designing Default Rules For Budgets, David Gamage, David Scott Louk

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In nearly every area of law and governance, default policies exist when lawmakers cannot pass new legislation — typically, the status quo simply remains in effect. To its detriment, U.S. budget making at both the state and federal levels lacks effective defaults. If a new budget isn’t passed by year end, there is no budget, and the government shuts down. This lack of defaults, coupled with a dysfunctional era of budgetary politics, has led to a number of recent high-profile and costly state and federal government shutdowns at the state and federal levels.

To date, legal scholarship has failed to …

Book Review. Somin, Ilya, Democracy And Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter, Steve Sanders

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Deficits, Debt, And The New Politics Of Tax Policy By Dennis S. Ippolito, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Trouble With Tax Increase Limitations, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this symposium essay, we explore the theoretical implications of one particular type of fiscal limitation on state legislatures — namely, special Tax Increase Limitation rules (TILs). We argue that there is no meaningful content to the term “tax increase” as used in TILs. This incoherence allows legislative majorities who wish to do so to circumvent TILs. This fact about TILs, among others, explains the observed inefficacy of TILs in shrinking the size of state governments.

Furthermore, TILs are not just harmless political theater. When combined with other common features of state fiscal constitutions, particularly Balanced Budget Requirements (BBRs), they …

Book Review. Tax And Spend: The Welfare State, Tax Politics, And The Limits Of American Liberalism By Molly C. Michelmore, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Pollack, S. D., War, Revenue, And State Building: Financing The Development Of The American State, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

On Tax Increase Limitations: Part Ii -- Evasion And Transcendence, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this essay, the second of a series, we continue our evaluation of state Tax Increase Limitations (TILs) – special rules that limit state legislatures’ ability to raise taxes, such as by requiring supermajority votes. We analyze two strategies whereby majority parties can evade TILs to the extent they so desire. We further argue that these strategies have some positive normative features. The strategies designed to evade TILs may ultimately lead toward a more effective means for controlling the size of state government than TILs themselves are able to provide.

On Tax Increase Limitations: Part I -- A Costly Incoherence, David Gamage, Darien Shanske

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this essay, the first of a series, we explore the theoretical implications of one particular type of fiscal limitation on state legislatures - namely, special rules limiting tax increases. In this first essay we will explore the analytic soundness of these tax increase limitations (TILs). In future essays in this series we will analyze some of the consequences of TILs and in particular how they can be 'evaded.' We will argue over the course of this series of essays that because there is no meaningful content to the term 'tax increase' as it is used in TILs, legislative majorities …

Preventing State Budget Crises: Managing The Fiscal Volatility Problem, David Gamage

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Forty-nine of the U.S. states have balanced budget requirements, and every state acts as though bound by such constraints. These constraints create fiscal volatility - the states must either cut spending or raise taxes during economic downturns, while doing the opposite during upturns. This paper discusses how states should cope with fiscal volatility on both the levels of ordinary politics and of institutional-design policy. On the level of ordinary politics, the paper applies principles of risk allocation theory to conclude that states should primarily adjust the rates of broad-based taxes as their economies cycle, rather than fluctuating public spending. States …

Foreward: President Barack Obama Law & Policy Symposium, Kevin D. Brown

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Forging Fiscal Reform: Constitutional Change, Public Policy, And The Creation Of Administrative Capacity In Wisconsin, 1880-1920, Ajay K. Mehrotra

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In 1911, Wisconsin became one of the first U.S. states to adopt an effectively administered income tax. Wisconsin reformers were able to overcome several institutional barriers to create the administrative capacity necessary to assess and collect a graduated income tax that in time raised significant revenue, but did not supplant the property tax. With this limited success, the Wisconsin income tax soon became a model for other states and even the national government. In this sense, Wisconsin was a leader in forging fiscal reform. Political activists, lawmakers, and other government actors in the Badger State led a turn-of-the-century property tax …

Xdr Tuberculosis, The New International Health Regulations, And Human Rights, David P. Fidler, Philippe Calain

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Health And Foreign Policy, David P. Fidler, Nick Drager

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Calibrating The Wealth And Health Of Nations: Trade, Health, And Foreign Policy After The Wto's First Decade, David P. Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

One of the most important themes to emerge from the relationship between trade and health in the first ten year's of the WTO's existence is the challenge of achieving policy coherence. This task is a foreign policy challenge for WTO Members, which requires looking at the relationship between trade and health against the backdrop of the making and implementing of foreign policy. Policy coherence has generally become a major concern for foreign policymakers because post-Cold War trends, such as accelerating globalization, seriously challenge traditional foreign policy assumptions, practices, and institutions. Part of this new context for foreign policy involves the …

Health As Foreign Policy: Between Principle And Power, David P. Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Models In Social Science: A Review Of Law And Public Policy: A Socioeconomic Approach, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Public Interest Litigation In A Comparative Context, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Changing Shape Of Government, Alfred C. Aman, Steve Savas, Elliott Sclar, Lester Salamon, Charles Sabel

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Gillian E. Metzger, Alfred C. Aman Jr., Charles F. Sabel, Lester M. Salamon, E.S. Savas and Elliot D. Sclar participate in panel discussions focusing on the question of how to secure government accountability in the context of the expansion of privatization in government? This panel discusses some of the changes we are seeing in government institutions and in the ways government operates. The panelists describe ways in which the move toward privatization and the expansion of the gray area between public and private is occurring, but also will talk about changes we may see as being particularly useful in dealing …

Peace Through Trade? Developments In Palestinian Trade Law During The Peace Process, David P. Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Rhetoric, Reality, And The Law Of Unfunded Federal Mandates, Daniel H. Cole, Carol S. Comer

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Communications Policymaking, Fred H. Cate

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The National Information Infrastructure: Policymaking And Policymakers, Fred H. Cate

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Perils Of Unreasonable Risk: Information, Regulatory Policy, And Toxic Substances Control, John S. Applegate

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Legislative Self-Constraint: A Reply To Professor Kahn, William D. Popkin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Land Development In Crowded Places: Lessons From Abroad By George Lefcoe, A. Dan Tarlock

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Energy Crisis: A Few Perspectives, Alfred C. Aman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.