Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in Law

Of Bodies Politic And Pecuniary: A Brief History Of Corporate Purpose, David B. Guenther Dec 2019

Of Bodies Politic And Pecuniary: A Brief History Of Corporate Purpose, David B. Guenther

Law & Economics Working Papers

American corporate law has long drawn a bright line between for-profit and non-profit corporations. In recent years, hybrid or social enterprises have increasingly put this bright-line distinction to the test. This Article asks what we can learn about the purpose of the American business corporation by examining its history and development in the United States in its formative period from roughly 1780-1860. This brief history of corporate purpose suggests that the duty to maximize profits in the for-profit corporation is a relatively recent development. Historically, the American business corporation grew out of an earlier form of corporation that was neither …


The Dialogic Aspect Of Soft Law In International Insolvency: Discord, Digression, And Development, John A. E. Pottow Oct 2019

The Dialogic Aspect Of Soft Law In International Insolvency: Discord, Digression, And Development, John A. E. Pottow

Law & Economics Working Papers

Soft law is on the ascent in international insolvency, seeming now to occupy a preferred status over boring old conventions. An arguably constitutive aspect of soft law, which some contend provides a normative justification for international law generally, is its "dialogic" nature, by which I mean its intentional exposure to recursive norm contestation and iterative development: soft law starts a dialogue. The product of that dialogue, on a teleological view, may well be hard law. In the international insolvency realm, that pathway is through (soft) model domestic legislation that aspires toward enactment as municipal law. The happy story is that …


Toward A 21st-Century International Tax Regime, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah Aug 2019

Toward A 21st-Century International Tax Regime, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

The OECD has been struggling to respond to countries that wish to tax large US technology companies on the basis of where their consumers live. The current OECD work program on digitalization is unlikely to produce a stable consensus or prevent countries from following the lead of France, India, Italy and the United Kingdom toward digital services taxes. The United States response should not be to target French, Indian, Italian or British companies for retaliation. Instead, the United States should consider adopting a sales-based formulary apportionment (SFA) solution that would apply to all large enterprises. Such a move is more …


Fascism And Monopoly, Daniel A. Crane Aug 2019

Fascism And Monopoly, Daniel A. Crane

Law & Economics Working Papers

The recent revival of political interest in antitrust has resurfaced a longstanding debate about the role of industrial concentration and monopoly in enabling Hitler’s rise to power and the Third Reich’s wars of aggression. Proponents of stronger antitrust enforcement argue that monopolies and cartels brought the Nazis to power and warn that rising concentration in the American economy could similarly threaten democracy. Skeptics demur, observing that German big business largely opposed Hitler during the crucial years of his ascent. Drawing on business histories and archival material from the U.S. Office of Military Government’s Decartelization Unit, this Article assesses the historical …


Prosecutorial Discretion And Environmental Crime Redux: Charging Trends, Aggravating Factors, And Individual Outcome Data For 2005-2014, David M. Uhlmann May 2019

Prosecutorial Discretion And Environmental Crime Redux: Charging Trends, Aggravating Factors, And Individual Outcome Data For 2005-2014, David M. Uhlmann

Law & Economics Working Papers

In a 2014 article entitled “Prosecutorial Discretion and Environmental Crime,” I presented empirical data developed by student researchers participating in the Environmental Crimes Project at the University of Michigan Law School. My 2014 article reported that 96 percent of defendants investigated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and charged with federal environmental crimes from 2005 through 2010 engaged in conduct that involved at least one of the aggravating factors identified in my previous scholarship, namely significant harm, deceptive or misleading conduct, operating outside the regulatory system, and repetitive violations. On that basis, I concluded that prosecutors charged violations that …


If Not Now, When? Us Tax Treaties With Latin America After Tcja, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah May 2019

If Not Now, When? Us Tax Treaties With Latin America After Tcja, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

Since the 1990s, the US tax treaty network has expanded to include most large developing countries. However, there remains a glaring exception: The US only has two tax treaties in Latin America (Mexico and Venezuela), and one pending tax treaty (Chile). The traditional explanation for why the US has no treaty with, for example, Argentina or Brazil is the US refusal since 1957 to grant tax sparing credits to developing countries. Before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), this explanation was wrong, because the combination of deferral and cross-crediting meant that tax holidays in a source country …


Does Customary International Tax Law Exist?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah May 2019

Does Customary International Tax Law Exist?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

Customary international law is law that “results from a general and consistent practice of states followed by them from a sense of legal obligation.” “International agreements create law for states parties thereto and may lead to the creation of customary international law when such agreements are intended for adherence by states generally and are in fact widely accepted.” Does customary international law (CIL) exist in tax? There are over 3,000 bilateral tax treaties, and they are about 80% identical to each other, but do they create CIL that binds in the absence of a binding treaty, like for example the …


Globalization, Tax Competition And The Fiscal Crisis Of The Welfare State: A Twentieth Anniversary Retrospective, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah May 2019

Globalization, Tax Competition And The Fiscal Crisis Of The Welfare State: A Twentieth Anniversary Retrospective, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

Twenty years ago I wrote “Globalization, Tax Competition, and the Fiscal Crisis of the Welfare State” (113 Harv. L. Rev. 1573 (2000)), which argued that “[t]he current age of globalization can be distinguished from the previous one (from 1870 to 1914) by the much higher mobility of capital than labor… The mobility of capital is linked to tax competition, in which sovereign countries lower their tax rates on income earned by foreigners within their borders in order to attract both portfolio and direct investment. Tax competition, in turn, threatens to undermine the individual and corporate income taxes, which traditionally have …


The Cost Of Novelty, W. Nicholson Price Ii Mar 2019

The Cost Of Novelty, W. Nicholson Price Ii

Law & Economics Working Papers

Patent law tries to spur the development of new, better, innovative technology. But it focuses much more on “new” than “better” — and it turns out that “new” carries real social costs. I argue that patent law promotes innovation that diverges from existing technology, either a little (what I call “differentiating innovation”) or a lot (“exploring innovation”), at the expense of innovation that tells us more about existing technology (“deepening innovation”). Patent law’s focus on newness is unsurprising, and fits within a well-told narrative of innovative diversity accompanied by market selection of the best technologies. Unfortunately, innovative diversity brings not …


Targeting Poverty In The Courts: Improving The Measurement Of Ability To Pay, Meghan M. O'Neil, Jj Prescott Mar 2019

Targeting Poverty In The Courts: Improving The Measurement Of Ability To Pay, Meghan M. O'Neil, Jj Prescott

Law & Economics Working Papers

Ability-to-pay determinations are essential when governments use money-based alternative sanctions, like fines, to enforce laws. One longstanding difficulty in the U.S. has been the extreme lack of guidance on how courts are to determine a litigant’s ability to pay. The result has been a seat-of-the-pants approach that is inefficient and inaccurate, and, as a consequence, very socially costly. Fortunately, online platform technology presents a promising avenue for reform. In particular, platform technology offers the potential to increase litigant access, reduce costs, and ensure consistent and fair treatment—all of which should lead to more accurate sanctions. We use interviews, surveys, and …