Law Commons^™

Economic Efficiency Versus Public Choice: The Case Of Property Rights In Road Traffic Management, Jonathan R. Nash

Faculty Articles

This Article argues, using the case of responses to traffic con­gestion, that public choice theory provides a greater explanation for the emergence of property rights than does economic efficiency. The tradi­tional solution to traffic congestion is to provide new roadway capacity, but that is not an efficient response in that it does not lead to internaliza­tion of costs and may actually exacerbate congestion problems by induc­ing travel that would not have taken place but for the new construction. By contrast, congestion charges, which impose tolls designed to internal­ize the costs of driving, offer an efficient way to address the problem …

Super Medians, Lee Epstein, Tonja Jacobi

Faculty Articles

It is not surprising that virtually all analyses of the Supreme Court stress the crucial role played by the swing, pivotal, or median Justice: in theory, the median should be quite powerful. In practice, however, some are far stronger than others. Just as there are “super precedents” and “super statutes”—those that are weightier or more entrenched than others—there are “super medians”—Justices so powerful that they are able to exercise significant control over the outcome and content of the Court’s decisions.

Conventional wisdom holds that Justices accumulate power by virtue of their personality, methodological approach, or even background characteristics. But our …