Law Commons^™

Countercyclical Regulation And Its Challenges

Patricia A. McCoy

The Free Movement Of Capital In Europe: Is The European Court Of Justice Living Up To Its Framers' Intent And Setting An Example For The World?, Jarrod Tudor

Jarrod Tudor

The benefits to free movement of international financial flows are numerous but include an efficient asset market and the opportunity for economic growth and development for countries engaged in an agreement allowing for such freedom. The free movement of capital is one of the four pillars of the Treaty on the Function of the European Union (TFEU) along with the free movement of goods, services, and labor. Article 63 of the TFEU prohibits limitations on the free movement of capital while Article 65 of the TFEU allows for some exceptions. Not only does the free movement of capital doctrine suppose …

Dirty Debts Sold Dirt Cheap, Dalie Jimenez

Dalie Jimenez

More than 77 million Americans have a debt in collections. Many of these debts will be sold to debt buyers for pennies, or fractions of pennies, on the dollar. This Article details the perilous path that debts travel as they move through the collection ecosystem. Using a unique dataset of 84 consumer debt purchase and sale agreement, it examines the manner in which debts are sold, oftentimes as simple data on a spreadsheet, devoid of any documentary evidence. It finds that in many contracts, sellers disclaim all warranties about the underlying debts sold or the information transferred. Sellers also sometimes …

Halliburton, Basic And Fraud On The Market: The Need For A New Paradigm, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

Summary: Halliburton, Basic and Fraud on the Market: The Need for a New Paradigm

If defrauded securities plaintiffs cannot bring a class-action lawsuit, there often will be no effective remedy since the amount at stake for individual plaintiffs is not sufficient to warrant the substantial costs of litigation. To surmount the problem of individualized reliance and establish commonality, federal courts for twenty-five years have been employing the Basic fraud-on-the-market theory which posits that, in an efficient market, investors rely on the integrity of the market price.

While class certification at one time was a matter of course, today it is …

Gambling On Our Financial Future: How The Federal Government Fiddles While State Common Law Is A Safer Bet To Prevent Another Financial Collapse, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

Janus Capital Group, Inc. V. First Derivative Traders: The Culmination Of The Supreme Court’S Evolution From Liberal To Reactionary In Rule 10b-5 Actions, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

“Political” decisions such as Citizens United and National Federation of Independent Business (“Obamacare”) reflect the reactionary bent of several Supreme Court justices. But this reactionary trend is discernible in other areas as well. With regard to Rule 10b-5, the Court has handed down a series of decisions that could be grouped into four trilogies. The article examines the trend over the past 40 years which has become increasingly conservative and finally reactionary.

The first trilogy was a liberal one, arguably overextending the scope of Rule 10b-5. This was followed by a conservative trilogy which put a brake on such extension, …

Janus Capital Group, Inc. V. First Derivative Traders: The Culmination Of The Supreme Court’S Evolution From Liberal To Reactionary In Rule 10b-5 Actions, Charles W. Murdock

Charles W. Murdock

“Political” decisions such as Citizens United and National Federation of Independent Business (“Obamacare”) reflect the reactionary bent of several Supreme Court justices. But this reactionary trend is discernible in other areas as well. With regard to Rule 10b-5, the Court has handed down a series of decisions that could be grouped into four trilogies. The article examines the trend over the past 40 years which has become increasingly conservative and finally reactionary.

The first trilogy was a liberal one, arguably overextending the scope of Rule 10b-5. This was followed by a conservative trilogy which put a brake on such extension, …

Restoring The Natural Law: Copyright As Labor And Possession, Alfred C. Yen

Alfred C. Yen

In this Article, Professor Yen explores the problems associated with viewing copyright solely as a tool for achieving economic efficiency and advocates for the restoration of natural law to copyright jurisprudence. The Article demonstrates that economics has not been solely responsible for copyright’s development and basic structure, but has rather developed along lines suggested by neutral law, despite modern copyright jurisprudence. The Article considers the consequences of extinguishing copyright’s natural law facets in favor of the blind pursuit of efficiency and concludes by exploring the implications of restoring natural law thinking to copyright jurisprudence.

Evaluating Imf Crisis Prevention As A Matter Of Global Justice, Frank J. Garcia

Frank J. Garcia

No abstract provided.

Behavioral Public Finance, Edward J. Mccaffery

Edward J McCaffery

These are slides from a presentation to the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, Squaw Valley Conference, May, 2008 (at which event Michael Jensen got me to agree to post these slides as a pdf on SSRN . . . ). The task is to give an overview of what I hope to be an emerging field of behavioral public finance. Behavioral finance, as per Barberis and Thaler 2003 (and others), consists of two parts: (1) individual level heuristics and biases, which can lead to sub-optimal (inconsistent) judgment and decision-making, and (2) institutional arbitrage mechanisms. In private finance and …

Comments On Liebman And Zeckhauser, Simple Humans, Complex Insurance, Subtle Subsidies, Edward J. Mccaffery

Edward J McCaffery

These are brief comments on an excellent paper by Jeffrey Liebman and Richard Zeckhauser, prepared for a conference sponsored by the Urban Institute and Brookings on tax and health care policy. Liebman and Zeckhauser summarize the complexities involved in making optimal health insurance decisions, and offer generally cautionary notes about conflating these with tax law (a theme of the conference). Most importantly, Liebman and Zeckhauser suggest a positive role for employers in health care and insurance decisions, as better setters or framers of choice sets—witness 401(k) plans. In this Commentary, I applaud Leibman and Zeckhauser’s general work and particular observation, …

Levers Of Law Reform: Public Goods And Russian Banking

Patricia A. McCoy

No abstract provided.