Law Commons^™

Criteria Of International Tax Policy, Herbert I. Lazerow

University of San Diego Law and Economics Research Paper Series

Professor Joseph Sneed a generation ago developed seven macro-criteria for evaluating income tax changes. This paper asks whether those criteria are useful in the general field of international income tax. I conclude that Adequacy, Practicality, Equity, and Free Market Compatibility are important internationally, as is a new criterion, Balance-of-payments Enhancement, while the criteria of Reduced Economic Inequality, Stability and Political Order do not figure prominently in international tax.

Corporate Ethics In The Health Care Marketplace, Lynne Dallas

University of San Diego Law and Economics Research Paper Series

Consider three examples of problematic corporate decision making: first, in 2002, employees were less likely to have employer-provided insurance than thirty years ago and the price of health care for those who do receive it is ever increasing. Second, while many employees are without health insurance, the compensation for chief executive officers and other executive officers has increased dramatically. Third, consider the well-publicized examples of corporate decisions to engage in fraudulent and unethical business practices.

These problems will not be solved by glib references to market ideology that claims markets alone adequately regulate corporate behavior. Nor will these problems be …

Social Choice, Crypto-Initiatives And Policy Making By Direct Democracy, Thad Kousser, M D. Mccubbins

University of San Diego Law and Economics Research Paper Series

The initiative process was created originally to enable citizens to enact public policy directly and in so doing to overturn the dominion of interest groups and of state and local party machines. In recent years, initiatives have been thought to serve as a check on legislative authority and to provide the people with a means to pressure the legislature into adopting more public regarding policies. Indeed, the general consensus emerging from the most recent academic research is that, at their worst, initiatives are benign, while at their best, they serve to further the interests of electoral majorities.

A few scholars, …

Canonical Construction And Statutory Revisionism: The Strange Case Of The Appropriations Canon, Daniel B. Rodriguez, Mathew D. Mccubbins

University of San Diego Law and Economics Research Paper Series

In this article, we consider the impact of positive political theory on legislative interpretation and, in particular, the debate over interpretive canons. Our vehicle for this consideration is the appropriations canon. By virtue of this canon, courts construe narrowly legislative changes to statutes made through the appropriations process. We consider the underlying logic and rationale of this canon -- essentially, that the appropriations process is unrepresentative and insufficiently deliberative -- and use this analysis to investigate, more broadly, the processes of canonical construction in the modern statutory interpretation jurisprudence. Canonical construction, we argue, must be attentive to the equilibrium effects …

The Web Of Law, Thomas A. Smith

University of San Diego Law and Economics Research Paper Series

Scientists and mathematicians in recent years have become intensely interested in the structure of networks. Networks turn out to be crucial to understanding everything from physics and biology, to economics and sociology. This article proposes that the science of networks has important contributions to make to the study of law as well. Legal scholars have yet to study, or even recognize as such, one of the largest, most accessible, and best documented human-created networks in existence. This is the centuries-old network of case law and other legal authorities into which lawyers, judges, and legal scholars routinely delve in order to …

Descriptive Trademarks And The First Amendment, Lisa P. Ramsey

University of San Diego Law and Economics Research Paper Series

The protection of exclusive rights in descriptive trademarks is an unconstitutional restriction of speech under the First Amendment. Trademark laws that prohibit a competitor from using trademarked descriptive words to sell a product fail to satisfy the Central Hudson test for evaluating the constitutionality of commercial speech regulations. The use of a descriptive term to accurately describe a product is not misleading expression regardless of whether another business claims trademark rights in that term. Although the government has a substantial interest in protecting the ability of consumers to identify and distinguish among the products of a business and its competitors, …

Procedural Justice, Lawrence B. Solum

University of San Diego Law and Economics Research Paper Series

"Procedural Justice" offers a theory of procedural fairness for civil dispute resolution. The core idea behind the theory is the procedural legitimacy thesis: participation rights are essential for the legitimacy of adjudicatory procedures. The theory yields two principles of procedural justice: the accuracy principle and the participation principle. The two principles require a system of procedure to aim at accuracy and to afford reasonable rights of participation qualified by a practicability constraint.

The Article begins in Part I, Introduction, with two observations. First, the function of procedure is to particularize general substantive norms so that they can guide action. Second, …