Agency Commons^™

Shutting Down The Government, Alan L. Feld

Faculty Scholarship

Actions of the federal government cost money. Legislative processes that specify the amounts and purposes of governmental expenditures control the scope and content of government actions.¹ To paraphrase Chief Justice Marshall, the power to withhold spending involves the power to destroy.²

Those involved in the legislative process ordinarily do not engage in wholesale or sudden dismantling of government activities through unheralded failures to provide funds. While disputes over funding constitute a regular part of the nation's political activity, these controversies usually concern adjustments in the level of spending and of agency operations. A decision to terminate an agency …

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 …

The Inapplicability Of Market Theory To Adoptions, Tamar Frankel, Francis H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

Judge Posner addresses an important issue. More than 130,000 couples in this country want to adopt children, and plenty are available. But most couples want healthy, white infants, and those children are in short supply. To get the child of their choice, these couples are forced to pay large sums of money to intermediaries. On the other hand, many unwed, teenage women face unwanted pregnancies. Many of them opt for abortion, which is relatively inexpensive, or for carrying to term and raising the children themselves, which is governmentally subsidized. But few of these women choose to have the child and …

Fiduciary Law, Tamar Frankel

Faculty Scholarship

In the business realm, the fiduciary duties of partners, corporate directors, and officers originated with the formation of partnerships and corporations, but majority shareholders were not subjected to fiduciary duties until this century. ... As in a status relation, one party to a fiduciary relation (the entrustor) is dependent on the other (the fiduciary). ... For example, a trust is defined as a fiduciary relation in which property is transferred to the trustee. ... A trustee is chosen by the trustor, and must be able to manage the trust assets independently of the beneficiary's control. ... It further shows that …

Some Regulatory Implications Of Technology Assessment, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

To conclude this wide-ranging panel discussion, I want to briefly address two aspects of regulation which have been troublesome, and for which Technology Assessment may be particularly useful.

The first aspect, which relates to radiation and other hazardous substances in general, is the increasingly important regulatory function of forcing the development and application of appropriate control technologies on industry-normally, the development and application of devices and techniques to protect public and worker health and safety. The question becomes: Is the regulatory program appropriately forcing and guiding necessary advances in control techniques and their timely use?

Limitations On Contract Termination Rights—Franchise Cancellations, Ernest Gellhorn

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.