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Coasean Bargaining In Consumer Bankruptcy, Edward R. Morrison
Coasean Bargaining In Consumer Bankruptcy, Edward R. Morrison
Faculty Scholarship
During my first weeks as a graduate student in economics, a professor described the Coase Theorem as “nearly a tautology:” Assume a world in which bargaining is costless. If there are gains from trade, the Theorem tells us, the parties will trade. The initial assignment of property rights will not affect the final allocation because the parties will bargain (costlessly) to an efficient outcome. “How can that be a theorem?,” I remember thinking at the time.
Mortgage Modification And Strategic Behavior: Evidence From A Legal Settlement With Countrywide, Christopher Mayer, Edward R. Morrison, Tomasz Piskorski, Arpit Gupta
Mortgage Modification And Strategic Behavior: Evidence From A Legal Settlement With Countrywide, Christopher Mayer, Edward R. Morrison, Tomasz Piskorski, Arpit Gupta
Faculty Scholarship
We investigate whether homeowners respond strategically to news of mortgage modification programs. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in modification policy induced by settlement of U.S. state government lawsuits against Countrywide Financial Corporation, which agreed to offer modifications to seriously delinquent borrowers. Using a difference-in-difference framework, we find that Countrywide's monthly delinquency rate increased more than 0.54 percentage points – ten percent relative increase – immediately after the settlement's announcement. The estimated increase in default rates is largest among borrowers least likely to default otherwise. These results suggest that strategic behavior should be an important consideration in designing mortgage modification programs.
Why Restate The Bundle? The Disintegration Of The Restatement Of Property, Thomas W. Merrill, Henry E. Smith
Why Restate The Bundle? The Disintegration Of The Restatement Of Property, Thomas W. Merrill, Henry E. Smith
Faculty Scholarship
The American Law Institute (ALI) has devoted a great deal of time and energy to restating the law of property. To date, the ALI has produced 17 volumes that bear the name First, Second, or Third Restatement of Property. There is unquestionably much that is valuable in these materials. On the whole, however, the effort has been a disappointment. Some volumes seek faithfully to restate the consensus view of the law; others are transparently devoted to law reform. The ratio of reform to restatement has increased over time, to the point where significant portions of the Third Restatement …
Property And The Right To Exclude Ii, Thomas W. Merrill
Property And The Right To Exclude Ii, Thomas W. Merrill
Faculty Scholarship
In 1998 I published a short essay entitled Property and the Right to Exclude. It appeared in an issue of the Nebraska Law Review honoring Lawrence Berger, a long-time property professor at Nebraska. The essay has been rather widely cited, but I have my doubts as to whether it has been widely read. A review of citations in Westlaw suggests that the essay is commonly identified as arguing that the right to exclude is the "sine qua non" of property, a statement that appears in the opening paragraph. The typical citing author takes this to mean that …