Law Commons^™

Anonymous Speech And Section 527 Of The Internal Revenue Code, Donald B. Tobin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Cracked Foundations Of The Right To Secede, Donald L. Horowitz

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Caused Enron? A Capsule Social And Economic History Of The 1990s, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The sudden explosion of corporate accounting scandals and related financial irregularities that burst over the financial markets between late 2001 and the first half of 2002 e.g., Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, and others-raises an obvious question: why now? What explains the sudden concentration of financial scandals at this moment in time? Much commentary has rounded up the usual suspects and blamed the scandals on a decline in business morality, “infectious greed,” and similar subjective trends that cannot be reliably measured.

Legal Transitions: Some Welfarist Remarks, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

This essay offers a sympathetic, utilitarian critique of Louis Kaplow's famous argument for legal retroactivity in his 1986 article, "An Economic Analysis of Legal Transitions." The argument, very roughly, is that the prospect of retroactivity is desirable if citizens are rational because it gives them a desirable incentive to anticipate legal change. My central claim is that this argument trades upon a dubious, objective view of probability that assumes rational citizens assign the same probabilities to states as rational governmental officials. But it is subjective, not objective probabilities that bear on rational choice, and the subjective probabilities of rational citizens …

Risk, Death And Harm: The Normative Foundations Of Risk Regulation, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

Is death a harm? Is the risk of death a harm? These questions lie at the foundations of risk regulation. Agencies that regulate threats to human life, such as the EPA, OSHA, the FDA, the CPSC, or NHTSA, invariably assume that premature death is a first-party harm - a welfare setback to the person who dies - and often assume that being at risk of death is a distinct and additional first-party harm. If these assumptions are untrue, the myriad statutes and regulations that govern risky activities should be radically overhauled, since the third-party benefits of preventing premature death and …

Introduction To, Preferences And Rational Choice: New Perspectives And Legal Implications, Matthew D. Adler, Claire Finkelstein, Peter Huang

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Agenda Power In Brazil’S Camara Dos Deputados, 1989-98, Octavio Amorim Neto, Gary W. Cox, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Political (Science) Context Of Judging, Lee Epstein, Jack Knight, Andrew D. Martin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Racial Identity, Electoral Structures, And The First Amendment Right Of Association, Guy-Uriel Charles

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reconstructing Climate Policy: Beyond Kyoto, Jonathan B. Wiener, Richard B. Stewart

Faculty Scholarship

In their comprehensive analysis of the Kyoto Protocol and climate policy, Richard B. Stewart and Jonathan B. Wiener examine the current impasse in climate policy and the potential steps nations can take to reduce greenhouse gases. They summarize the current state of information regarding the extent of global warming that would be caused by increasing uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions. They explain why participation by all major greenhouse gas-emitting countries is essential to curb future greenhouse gas emissions and also note the significant obstacles to obtaining such participation.

Stewart and Wiener argue it is in the national interest of the United …

The Puzzle Of Ex Ante Efficiency: Does Rational Approvability Have Moral Weight?, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

A governmental decision is "ex ante efficient" if it maximizes the satisfaction of everyone's preferences ex ante, relative to other possible decisions. Equivalently, each affected person would be rational to approve the decision, given her preferences and beliefs at the time of the choice. Does this matter, morally speaking? Do governmental officials - legislators, judges, regulators - have a moral reason to make decisions that are ex ante efficient? The economist's answer is "yes." "Ex ante efficiency" is widely seen by welfare economists to have moral significance, and often appears within law-and-economics scholarship as a criterion for evaluating legal doctrines. …

Atkins, Adolescence, And The Maturity Heuristic: Rationales For A Categorical Exemption For Juveniles From Capital Punishment, Jeffrey A. Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

In Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court voted six to three to bar further use of the death penalty for mentally retarded offenders. The Court offered three reasons for banning the execution of the retarded. First, citing a shift in public opinion over the thirteen years since Penry v. Lynaugh, the Court in Atkins ruled that the execution of the mentally retarded is "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Second, the Court concluded that retaining the death penalty for the mentally retarded would not serve the interest in retribution or deterrence that is essential to capital …

Rethinking The Death Penalty: Can We Define Who Deserves Death – A Symposium Held At The Association Of The Bar Of The City Of New York May 22, 2002, Martin J. Leahy, Norman L. Greene, Robert Blecker, Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier, William M. Erlbaum, David Von Drehle, Jeffrey A. Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

In light of the defects of the capital punishment system and recent calls for a moratorium on executions, many are calling for serious reform of the system. Even some who would not eliminate the death penalty entirely propose reforms that they contend would result in fewer executions and would limit the death penalty to a category that they call the "worst of the worst." This program asks the question: Is there a category of defendants who are the "worst of the worst?" Can a crime be so heinous that a defendant can be said to "deserve" to be executed? Would …

Of Legal Transplants, Legal Irritants, And Economic Development, Katharina Pistor, Daniel Berkowitz

Faculty Scholarship

The collapse of the socialist system has given way to unprecedented economic and legal reforms in the former socialist countries. Over the past decade they have enacted new legislation in all areas of the law, drawing heavily on legal models from developed market economies, including common law and civil law countries. While the transplanted laws now on the books is largely consistent with Western practice, the enforcement of these new laws is often ineffective (Berkowitz, Pistor, and Richard, 2003).