Agency Commons^™

Keynote Address: The Conflicted Trustee Dilemma, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Irrevocable Proxies, Deborah A. Demott

Faculty Scholarship

This short article explores the circumstances under which the power to vote shares owned by another may be made irrevocable. Irrevocable proxies often serve as integral ingredients within corporate governance arrangements because they serve as mechanisms that enable alliances among shareowners or enhance the holder’s voting power in disproportion to the holder’s residual economic interest in the corporation. The rights and duties of holders of irrevocable proxies are best understood against a background of common-law agency relationships, in which agent and principal always have the power–albeit having contracted otherwise–to terminate their relationship and the agent’s actual authority. Courts in the …

For Whom The Tel Tolls: Can State Tax And Expenditure Limits Effectively Reduce Spending?, Thad Kousser, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Ellen Moule

Faculty Scholarship

Can voters stop state governments from spending at high rates through the enactment of tax and expenditure limits (TELs), or do these laws become dead letters? We draw upon the principal-agent literature to theorize that TELs – one of the most frequent uses of the initiative process across the country – may be circumvented by the sorts of elected officials who would inspire their passage.

In order to investigate our claim, we conduct an event study. First, we test for the effectiveness of TELs across states using a differences-in-differences model. Second, we dissect our treatment variable using different legal provisions …

Disloyal Agents, Deborah A. Demott

Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the consequences of an agent's breach of the fiduciary duty of loyalty. These consequences are underexplored in academic literature, in contrast to rationales for fiduciary duties more generally. The consequences of an agent's disloyalty are, moreover, not uniform across jurisdictions. The paper begins by differentiating between the meaning and consequences that the law ascribes to agency and its meaning in other academic disciplines, including economics and philosophy. It then considers the extent to which principles derived from contract and tort law can account for the consequences that courts assign to agents' disloyal conduct and concludes that a …

The Blaming Function Of Entity Criminal Liability, Samuel W. Buell

Faculty Scholarship

Application of the doctrine of entity criminal liability, which had only a thin tort-like rationale at inception, now sometimes instantiates a social practice of blaming institutions. Examining that social practice can ameliorate persistent controversy over entity liability's place in the criminal law. An organization's role in its agent's bad act is often evaluated with a moral slant characteristic of judgments of criminality and with inquiry into whether the institution qua institution contributed to the agent's wrong. Legal process, by lending clarity and authority, enhances the communicative impact, in the form of reputational effects, of blaming an institution for a wrong. …

Abdication Or Delegation? Congress, The Bureaucracy, And The Delegation Dilemma, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Structure And Process, Politics And Policy: Administrative Arrangements And The Political Control Of Agencies, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Roger D. Noll, Barry R. Weingast

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Theory Of Political Control And Agency Discretion, Randall L. Calvert, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Barry R. Weingast

Faculty Scholarship

A major issue in the study of American politics is the extent to which electoral discipline also constrains bureaucrats. In practice, executive agencies operate with considerable independence from elected officials. However,the entire process of policy execution is a game among legislators.the chief executive. and bureaucratic agents. It includes the initial delegation of authority, the choice of policy alternatives,and opportunities for oversight and control. A simple model of this process demonstrates an important distinction between bureaucratic authority and bureaucratic discretion. Indeed.in its simplest form, the model predicts a world in which bureaucrats are the sole active participants in policymaking, but in …

Limitations On Contract Termination Rights—Franchise Cancellations, Ernest Gellhorn

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.