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Copyright For A Social Species, Robert E. Suggs

Robert E. Suggs

Arguments about the proper scope of copyright protection focus on the economic consequences of varying degrees of protection. Most analysts view copyright as an economic phenomenon, and the size and health of our copyright industries measure the success of copyright policies. The constitutional text granting Congress the copyright power and the nature of special interest lobbying naturally create this economic focus; but this is a serious mistake. An exclusively economic focus makes no more sense than measuring the nutritional merits of our food supply from the size and profitability of the fast food industry. The expressive culture that copyright protects …

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Minorities And Privatization: Economic Mobility At Risk, Robert Suggs Dec 2009

Minorities And Privatization: Economic Mobility At Risk, Robert Suggs

Robert E. Suggs

This important study identifies the effects of municipal privatization on blacks and Hispanics. The author examines three fundamental issues: how privatization affects minority employment in municipal government; how it affects minority employment in the resulting private sector positions; and how it affects city contracting among minority-owned businesses. Contents: Introduction; Privatization in Theory and Practice; The Impact of Privatization on Minority Employment in Government; The Impact of Privatization on Minority Employment in the Private Sector; The Impact of Privatization on Minority Business Opportunities; Recommendations.

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Poisoning The Well: Law & Economics And Racial Inequality, Robert Suggs Dec 2009

Poisoning The Well: Law & Economics And Racial Inequality, Robert Suggs

Robert E. Suggs

The standard Law & Economics analysis of racial discrimination has stunted our thinking about race. Its early conclusion, that laws prohibiting racial discrimination were unnecessary and wasteful, discredited economic analysis of racial phenomena within the civil rights community. As a consequence we know little about the impact of racial discrimination on commercial transactions between business firms. Laws do not prohibit racial discrimination in transactions between business firms, and the disparity in business revenues between racial minorities and the white mainstream dwarf disparities in income by orders of magnitude. This disparity in business revenues is a major factor in the persistence …

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Bringing Small Business Development To Urban Neighborhoods, Robert E. Suggs Dec 2009

Bringing Small Business Development To Urban Neighborhoods, Robert E. Suggs

Robert E. Suggs

This article describes a race-neutral policy proposal designed to increase business formation and success rates for young urban African Americans. The proposal suggests using local governments' taxing authority, in a manner analogous to tax increment financing, to create financial incentives for successful small business owners to employ, and then mentor and train as business owners, young urban entrepreneurs from deteriorating neighborhoods. The amount of financial incentive varies directly with financial success of protégés and requires the transfer of some of the mentor’s social (reputational) capital to the protégé. Business activity has created wealth and economic mobility for other ethnic groups, …

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Business Combination Antitakeover Statutes, The Unintended Repudiation Of The Internal Affairs Doctrine, And Constitutional Constraints On Choice Of Law, Robert E. Suggs Dec 2009

Business Combination Antitakeover Statutes, The Unintended Repudiation Of The Internal Affairs Doctrine, And Constitutional Constraints On Choice Of Law, Robert E. Suggs

Robert E. Suggs

This article examines the constitutional validity of business combination antitakeover statutes. Delaware and other important corporate law jurisdictions enacted these statutes during the 1980s to inhibit hostile leveraged corporate takeovers and protect incumbent managements. These statutes work by prohibiting transactions which enable a hostile acquirer with a mere majority of target stock to sell target assets for cash and retain all the cash to service acquisition debt while paying off with securities the minority shareholders' interest in the assets sold. This allows the takeover to be financed with the assets acquired. Analyzing the structural operation of these statutes in greater …

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Racial Discrimination In Business Transactions, Robert E. Suggs Dec 2009

Racial Discrimination In Business Transactions, Robert E. Suggs

Robert E. Suggs

When the Supreme Court invalidated a municipal minority business set-aside in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., it failed to recognize the special circumstances confronting the minority entrepreneur. Contrary to the Court’s own erroneous assertion that “[s]tates and their local subdivisions have many legislative weapons at their disposal both to punish and prevent present [business] discrimination ….” – they do not. Nor can they create effective antidiscrimination remedies as a practical matter. As a result that decision leaves minority business owners vulnerable to discrimination from other business firms but without a remedy. Part I identifies the glaring failure of …

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Rethinking Minority Business Development Strategies, Robert E. Suggs Dec 2009

Rethinking Minority Business Development Strategies, Robert E. Suggs

Robert E. Suggs

Minority business set-asides were created as a prophylactic measure to redress discrimination against minority owned business firms. Predominantly minority jurisdictions found them especially attractive because they promised to provide minority firms a share of the procurement dollars expended by these jurisdictions. The Croson decision invalidated Richmond’s ordinance and posed substantial barriers to further enactments. This article proposes an alternative to such set-aides. It argues that the proposed alternative, an Equal Opportunity Rating Agency (EORA), provides a superior business development policy tool and does not have the constitutional vulnerabilities of set-asides. An EORA would operate much like a credit rating agency, …

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A Dialogue In Search Of Meaning, Robert E. Suggs Dec 2009