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Climbing To 1011: Globalization, Digitization, Shareholder Capitalism And The Summits Of Contemporary Wealth, David A. Westbrook
Climbing To 1011: Globalization, Digitization, Shareholder Capitalism And The Summits Of Contemporary Wealth, David A. Westbrook
Journal Articles
While we may find many sorts of inequality in the United States and elsewhere, this essay is about the specific form of inequality exemplified by Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, that is, the Himalayan summits of contemporary wealth, mostly in the United States. Such wealth results from the confluence of three historical developments.
First, the social processes referred to under the rubric of “globalization” have created vast markets. A dominant position in such markets leads not only to great wealth, but the elimination of peers. Since there are few such markets, relatively significant wealth is possessed by very few people. …
The Law And Economics Of Redistribution, Matthew Dimick
The Law And Economics Of Redistribution, Matthew Dimick
Journal Articles
Should legal rules be used to redistribute income? Or should income taxation be the exclusive means for reducing income inequality? This article reviews the legal scholarship on this question. First, it traces how the most widely cited argument in favor of using taxes exclusively--Kaplow & Shavell's (1994) double-distortion argument--evolved from previous debates about whether legal rules could even be redistributive and whether law and economics should be concerned exclusively with efficiency or with distribution as well. Next, it surveys the responses to the double-distortion argument. These responses appear to have had only limited success in challenging the sturdy reputation of …
Models Of Other-Regarding Preferences And Redistribution, Matthew Dimick, David Rueda, Daniel Stegmueller
Models Of Other-Regarding Preferences And Redistribution, Matthew Dimick, David Rueda, Daniel Stegmueller
Journal Articles
Despite the increasing popularity of comparative work on other-regarding preferences, the implications of different models of altruism are not always fully understood. This article analyzes different theoretical approaches to altruism and explores what empirical conclusions we should draw from them, paying particular attention to models of redistribution preferences where inequality explicitly triggers other-regarding motives for redistribution. While the main contribution of this article is to clarify the conclusions of these models, we also illustrate the importance of their distinct implications by analyzing Western European data to compare among them. We draw on individual-level data from the European Social Survey fielded …
Should The Law Do Anything About Economic Inequality?, Matthew Dimick
Should The Law Do Anything About Economic Inequality?, Matthew Dimick
Journal Articles
What should be done about rising income and wealth inequality? Should the design and adoption of legal rules take into account their effects on the distribution of income and wealth? Or should the tax-and-transfer system be the exclusive means to address concerns about inequality? A widely-held view argues for the latter: only the tax system, and not the legal system, should be used to redistribute income. While this argument comes in a variety of normative arguments and has support across the political spectrum, there is also a well-known law-and-economics version. This argument, known as the “double-distortion” argument, is simply stated. …
Toward A Fundamental Right To Evade Law? Protecting The Rule Of Unequal Racial And Economic Power In Shelby County And State Farm, Martha T. Mccluskey
Toward A Fundamental Right To Evade Law? Protecting The Rule Of Unequal Racial And Economic Power In Shelby County And State Farm, Martha T. Mccluskey
Journal Articles
To rationalize its ruling on voting rights, Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder develops a constitutional vision of passivity in the face of institutionalized power to violate the law. This essay compares Shelby County to State Farm Mutual Automobile v. Campbell, a 2003 Supreme Court ruling involving a different subject area, state punitive damage awards. In both, the Court asserts newly articulated judicial power to override other branches, not to protect human rights, but rather to expand institutionalized immunity from those rights. On the surface, the Court’s rejection of state sovereignty in State Farm (protecting multistate corporations from high punitive damages) …