Law Commons^™

Valuation Averaging: A New Procedure For Resolving Valuation Disputes, Keith Sharfman

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

In this Article, Professor Sharfman addresses the problem of "discretionary valuation": that courts resolve valuation disputes arbitrarily and unpredictably, thus harming litigants and society. As a solution, he proposes the enactment of "valuation averaging," a new procedure for resolving valuation disputes modeled on the algorithmic valuation processes often agreed to by sophisticated private firms in advance of any dispute. He argues that by replacing the discretion of judges and juries with a mechanical valuation process, valuation averaging would cause litigants to introduce more plausible and conciliatory valuations into evidence and thereby reduce the cost of valuation litigation and increase the …

“Black People’S Money”: The Impact Of Law, Economics, And Culture In The Context Of Race On Damage Recoveries, Regina Austin

All Faculty Scholarship

“’Black People’s Money’: The Impact of Law, Economics, and Culture in the Context of Race on Damage Recoveries” is one of a series of articles by the author dealing with black economic marginalization; prior work considered such topics as shopping and selling as forms of deviance, street vending, restraints on leisure, and the importance of informality in loan transactions. This article deals with the linkage between the social significance of black people’s money and its material value. It analyzes the construction of “black money,” its association with cash, and the taboos and cultural practices that assure that black money will …

Judging Unions' Future Using A Historical Perspective: The Public Policy Choice Between Competition And Unionization, Michael L. Wachter

All Faculty Scholarship

In this paper I look at unions' future using a historical perspective and focusing on the period of union ascendancy as well as the past few decades when unions have been in decline. We know trends currently in place are unfavorable to unions. What conditions would be favorable? The rise of unions from the 1930s through the early 1950s was due to the convergence of a number of events - an economic policy that attempted to restrict competition beginning in the 1930s, the twin beliefs that labor markets were inherently noncompetitive and/or that individual workplaces were exploitative, and low union …

Financing Chinese Capitalism: Principal Banks, Economic Crisis, And Chinese Family Firms In Singapore, Henry W. Yeung

Cultural Approaches to Asian Financial Markets

It is a widely circulated myth that Chinese family firms rely exclusively on kinship ties and network capital to finance their domestic and international operations. In this empirical paper, I argue that large Chinese family firms are increasingly engaging with financial markets on a global scale. In order to finance their transnational business activities, these firms require financial services from banks beyond their domestic economies, resulting in a growing number and geographical spread of their principal banks. Second, I contend that as these Chinese family firms are diversifying their principal banks beyond a narrow confinement to other Chinese family-owned banks …

Hot Jobs Or Not So Hot? Outlook For Maine's Women Workers, Bureau Of Labor Education. University Of Maine

Bureau of Labor Education

There are currently many upbeat analyses of the best and highest paying “hot new jobs” available to women workers in the first decade of the 21st century. Presumably, these career choices will offer such desirable things as good wages, decent benefits, creative and interesting work, and opportunities for advancement. However, while many individual women may benefit from such career advice, the sad fact is that the largest occupations available to women workers in Maine will continue to be pathways primarily to low wages, disappearing benefits, and dismal economic security. This briefing paper focuses on four basic questions concerning Maine’s women …

Taxing Sunny Days: Adjusting Taxes For Regional Living Costs And Amenities, Michael S. Knoll, Thomas D. Griffith

All Faculty Scholarship

Taxpayers pay tax on their nominal income without regard to their regional cost of living or the value of their regional amenities. Although commentators have argued that the income tax's failure to account for such differences is unfair - because residents of high-cost and low-amenity regions pay higher taxes than residents of low-cost and high-amenity regions - that argument is unpersuasive because migration tends to eliminate regional differences in living standards. The tax system's failure to adjust for regional differences is, however, likely to misallocate resources across regions in two ways. First, it is likely to discourage taxpayers from settling …

Behavioral Economics And The Sec, Stephen Choi, Adam C. Pritchard

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

Investors face myriad investment alternatives and seemingly limitless information concerning those alternatives.Not surprisingly, many commentators contend that investors frequently fall short of the ideal investor posited by the rational actor model. Investors are plagued with a variety of behavioral biases (such as, among others, the hindsight bias, the availability bias, loss aversion, and overconfidence). Even securities market institutions and intermediaries may suffer from biases, led astray by groupthink and overconfidence. The question remains whether regulators should focus on such biases in formulating policy. An omnipotent regulatory decisionmaker would certainly improve on flawed investor decisionmaking. The alternative we face, however, is …

Rethinking The Commitment To Free, Local Television, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

One of the most enduring tenets of U.S. television policy has been the commitment to localism. I suggest that the FCC's localism policy can be disaggregated into four, more specific commitments: (1) the preference for locally oriented over nationally oriented programming, (2) the preference for free (i.e., advertising-supported) over pay television, (3) the preference for single-channel over multi-channel television technologies, and (4) the preference for incumbents over new entrants and new technologies. I then analyze each of these commitments in light of what is perhaps the most distinctive feature of the television industry, which is the fact that its cost …

The Rise And Demise Of The Technology-Specific Approach To The First Amendment, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

This article examines how analytical, technological, and doctrinal developments are forcing the courts to reconsider their media-specific approach to assessing the constitutionality of media regulation. In particular, it offers a comprehensive reevaluation of the continuing validity of the Broadcast Model of regulation, which contains features, such as licensing and direct content regulation, that normally would be considered paradigmatic violations of the First Amendment. Specifically, the analysis assesses the theoretical coherence of the traditional justification for extending a lesser degree of First Amendment protection to broadcasting than to other media (i.e., the physical scarcity of the electromagnetic spectrum) as well as …

The Immigration Paradox: Poverty, Distributive Justice, And Liberal Egalitarianism, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

The immigration of unskilled workers poses a fundamental problem for liberals. While from the perspective of the economic welfare of natives, the optimal policy would be to admit these aliens as guest workers, this policy would violate liberal egalitarian ideals. These ideals would treat these resident workers as equals, entitled to access to citizenship and to the full set of public benefits provided to citizens. If the welfare of all incumbent residents determines admissions policies, however, and we anticipate the fiscal burden that the immigration of the poor would impose, then our welfare criterion would preclude the admission of unskilled …

University Technology Transfer And Economic Development: Proposed Cooperative Economic Development Agreements Under The Bayh Dole Act, Clovia Hamilton

Winthrop Faculty and Staff Publications

Technology transfer enables private industry and academia to make practical use of advanced research, development, and technical expertise. Indeed, universities are a rich source of science and technology that can support local government and business development as well as economic growth. Thus, it is essential for research universities to transfer their wisdom to the public for its use and benefit. Today, universities operate in an economic climate that requires both capital and knowledge; takes advantage of government technology initiatives (namely the Bayh- Dole Act);' and serves as a catalyst for the creation of a large number of new, incubated companies. …

On The Proper Motives Of Corporate Directors (Or, Why You Don't Want To Invite Homo Economicus To Join Your Board), Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

One of the most important questions in corporate governance is how directors of public corporations can be motivated to serve the interests of the firm. Directors frequently hold only small stakes in the companies they manage. Moreover, a variety of legal rules and contractual arrangements insulate them from liability for business failures. Why then should we expect them to do a good job?

Conventional corporate scholarship has great difficulty wrestling with this question, in large part because conventional scholarship usually adopts the economist's assumption that directors are rational actors motivated purely by self-interest. This homo economicus model of behavior may …

A Non-Harmonized Perspective On Parallel Imports: The Protection Of Intellectual Property Rights And The Free Movement Of Goods In International Trade, Krithpaka Boonfueng

SJD Dissertation Abstracts

This dissertation aims to define an appropriate international legal standard for the exhaustion doctrine as it pertains to parallel imports, being the importation of genuine goods but without authorization from intellectual property owners. The clarification of this issue is needed because developed and developing countries have different perspectives on the application of the exhaustion doctrine. Under the exhaustion doctrine, once an intellectual property owner deliberately releases or authorizes others to release goods into the stream of commerce, his exclusive right to further control the goods is no longer valid. However, there are three diverse aspects in the application of exhaustion …

New Social Movements And The Struggle For Worker’S Rights In The Maquila Industry, Victoria Carty

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

"Campaigns to improve worker’s rights in export processing zones (EPZs), also referred to the maquila industry in Latin America, is an important topic analytically and politically. On theoretical and practical levels, the co-existence of market economies with effective means to ensure adequate working conditions for workers is a critical question. Underlying the issue is a vigorous debate regarding how the global economy should be governed; who or what should govern it, and whose interest is should serve (Faux, 2002)."

Power, Privilege, And Special Interests: Rent Seeking And Subsidies In Agriculture, Matt Bogard

Agriculture Department Seminar Series

This presentation covers what Public Choice economists refer to as ‘rent seeking,’ generally seeking favor or special privilege from government through subsidies or regulatory advantages. Particularly, the biotech industry is the area of focus for this presentation. Problems with rent seeking in the biotech industry involve less innovation and industry consolidation. Policies related to biotech regulation, school lunch programs, the Clean Air Act, and ethanol subsidies are discussed. A game theoretic approach is used and it is concluded that issues related to rent seeking and special interests are not adequately addressed by recent campaign finance reform efforts. Alternatives such as …

The Functions Of Transaction Costs: Rethinking Transaction Cost Minimization In A World Of Friction, David M. Driesen, Shubha Ghosh

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This article critically examines the goal of minimizing transaction costs, including the costs of legal decision-making. This goal permeates the law and economics literature and has profoundly influenced public policy. While most transaction cost scholarship has focused upon private law, this influence has been especially pervasive in public law, where it has contributed to a variety of legal changes aimed at reducing public transaction costs, often through privatization.

We argue that transaction costs perform useful functions. They frequently enable those engaging in transactions to obtain information needed to correct for information asymmetries or inadequate information. They facilitate efficient transactions, allow …

Caveat Emptor: Lessons From Volkswagen's Lemon Purchase, Terence Lau

Management and Marketing Faculty Publications

This article traces Volkswagen's mis-steps in the botched acquisition of Rolls Royce, and solutions are offered for counsel engaged in international transactions with the hope that the practitioner with little experience in the area can avoid similarly embarrassing and costly errors. The article also offers recommendations on how to draft contract clauses for international licensing use, and provides a brief overview of export control regimes counsel should be aware of when engaging in international transactions.

Getting Off The Dole: Why The Court Should Abandon Its Spending Doctrine And How A Too-Clever Congress Could Provoke It To Do So, Mitchell N. Berman

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Converted Or Unconverted: To Whom Do We Preach?, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Qualified Legal Compliance Committee: Using The Attorney Conduct Rules To Restructure The Board Of Directors, Jill E. Fisch, Caroline M. Gentile

All Faculty Scholarship

The Securities and Exchange Commission introduced a new corporate governance structure, the qualified legal compliance committee, as part of the professional standards of conduct for attorneys mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. QLCCs are consistent with the Commission’s general approach to improving corporate governance through specialized committees of independent directors. This Article suggests, however, that assessing the benefits and costs of creating QLCCs may be more complex than is initially apparent. Importantly, QLCCs are unlikely to be effective in the absence of incentives for active director monitoring. This Article concludes by considering three ways of increasing these incentives.

Infected Judgment: Legal Responses To Physician Bias, Mary Crossley

Articles

Substantial evidence indicates that clinically irrelevant patient characteristics, including race and gender, may at times influence a physician's choice of treatment. Less clear, however, is whether a patient who is the victim of a biased medical decision has any effective legal recourse. Heedful of the difficulties of designing research to establish conclusively the role of physician bias, this article surveys published evidence suggesting the operation of physician bias in clinical decision making. The article then examines potential legal responses to biased medical judgments. A patient who is the subject of a biased decision may sue her doctor for violating his …

Investor Skepticism V. Investor Confidence: Why The New Research Analyst Reforms Will Harm Investors, John L. Orcutt

Law Faculty Scholarship

Part I of this Article provides an overview of research analysts and their basic functions, including a discussion of sell-side analysts' role in the market's recent boom and bust. Part II examines the conflicts of interest that have plagued sell-side research, and Part III reviews the Regulatory Actions that are meant to address these conflicts. In Part IV, the author will make the case for encouraging, rather than lessening, investor skepticism in sell-side research and will explain why the Regulatory Actions are not likely to improve the performance of sell-side analysts. Finally, Part V will offer a simpler proposal to …

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

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

How Relevant Is Jury Rationality?, David A. Hoffman

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay reviews Punitive Damages: How Juries Decide by Cass Sunstein, et al. The book provides a good example of a recent trend: the use of behavioralist research to justify surprisingly paternalistic legal reforms. While critics of behavioralism often contend that its theoretical foundations are weak, this approach is unlikely to prove an effective rejoinder in the new debate about what kinds of paternalism are made permissible by human "irrationality". A better approach: (1) notes the lack of a nexus between behavioralism and the supposed emergent necessity of paternalist reforms; and (2) suggests that juror unwillingness to apply cost-benefit formula …

Can Majority Voting Provisions Do It All?, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Takeover Defense When Financial Markets Are (Only) Relatively Efficient, Michael L. Wachter

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper evaluates the impact of developments in the understanding of asset value pricing for alternative legal standards for takeover defenses: the management discretion and the shareholder rights positions. Both sides place considerable, albeit implicit, reliance on alternative views of the efficiency of financial markets. Developments in finance theory show that when financial markets are only "relatively efficient," stock prices can incorrectly value the corporation at any point in time, at the same time as investors cannot outperform the market on an ongoing basis. I focus on financial market anomalies arising from the failure of the capital asset pricing model …

Immigration And The Workplace: Immigration Restrictions As Employment Discrimination, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Is There A Role For Lawyers In Preventing Future Enrons?, Jill E. Fisch, Kenneth M. Rosen

All Faculty Scholarship

Following the collapse of the Enron Corporation, the ethical obligations of corporate attorneys have received increased scrutiny. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, enacted in response to calls for corporate reform, specifically requires the Securities and Exchange Commission to address the lawyer’s role by requiring covered attorneys to “report up” evidence of corporate wrongdoing to key corporate officers, and, in some circumstances, to the board of directors. Failure to “report up” subjects a lawyer to liability under federal law.

This Article argues that the reporting up requirement reflects a second-best approach to corporate governance reform. Rather than focusing on the actors …

How To Fix Wall Street: A Voucher Financing Proposal For Securities Intermediaries, Stephen Choi, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Draft Of Rendering Copyright Into Caesar - 2003, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

This article makes a simple suggestion. Copyright rules by money, so let it rule the money-bound. Let a different set of rules evolve for more complex uses, particularly when the users have a personal relationship with the utilized text. Copyright. When new artists make transformative use of existing works in settings not characterized by pre-use commercial negotiations, copyright should avoid imposing a distorting burden.