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Fashioning Entitlements: A Comparative Law And Economic Analysis Of The Judicial Role In Environmental Centralization In The U.S. And Europe, Jason S. Johnston, Michael G. Faure
Fashioning Entitlements: A Comparative Law And Economic Analysis Of The Judicial Role In Environmental Centralization In The U.S. And Europe, Jason S. Johnston, Michael G. Faure
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This paper identifies and evaluates, from an economic point of view, the role of the judiciary the steady shift of environmental regulatory authority to higher, more centralized levels of government in both the U.S. and Europe. We supply both a positive analysis of how the decisions made by judges have affected the incentives of both private and public actors to pollute the natural environment, and normative answers to the question of whether judges have acted so as to create incentives that move levels of pollution in an efficient direction, toward their optimal, cost-minimizing (or net-benefit-maximizing) levels. Highlights of the analysis …
The Effect Of Judicial Expedience On Attorney Fees In Class Actions, Eric Helland, Jonathan Klick
The Effect Of Judicial Expedience On Attorney Fees In Class Actions, Eric Helland, Jonathan Klick
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Judges facing exogenous constraints on their pecuniary income have an incentive to reduce their workload to increase their private welfare. In the face of an increase in caseload, this incentive will induce judges to attempt to terminate some cases more rapidly. In class action cases, failing to grant an attorney fee request will delay termination. This conflict is likely to lead judges to authorize higher fees as court congestion increases. Using two data sets of class action settlements, we show that attorney fees are significantly and positively related to the congestion level of the court hearing the case.