Law and Economics Commons^™

Keynote Remarks, Vanita Gupta

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In communities across America today, from Ferguson, Missouri, to Flint, Michigan, too many people—especially young people and people of color—live trapped by the weight of poverty and injustice. They suffer the disparate impact of policies driven by, at best, benign neglect, and at worst, deliberate indifference. And they see how discrimination stacks the deck against them. So today, as we discuss the inequality that pervades our criminal justice system—a defining civil rights challenge of the 21st century—we must also acknowledge the broader inequalities we face in other segments of society. Because discrimination in so many areas—from the classroom, to the …

Cash Is King: How Market-Based Strategies Have Corrupted Classrooms And Criminal Courts In Post-Katrina New Orleans, 39 Seattle U. L. Rev. 1199 (2016), Olympia Duhart, Hugh Mundy

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

On many accounts, it is a tale of two cities. The headlines and marketing machines tout to the world that “The Big Easy is Back.” But beyond the celebrations and parades, the story for poor Katrina survivors is very different. While many residents and businesses are enjoying a resurgence a decade after Katrina stormed through, others in post-Katrina New Orleans have a different experience. More than ten years after Hurricane Katrina, the city still struggles with systemic failures. These problem areas include housing, health care, mental health treatment, employment, education, and the criminal justice system. All of these challenges are …

Portmanteau Ascendant: Post-Release Regulations And Sex Offender Recidivism, J. J. Prescott

Articles

The purported purpose of sex offender post-release regulations (e.g., community notification and residency restrictions) is the reduction of sex offender recidivism. On their face, these laws seem well-designed and likely to be effective. A simple economic framework of offender behavior can be used to formalize these basic intuitions: in essence, post-release regulations either increase the probability of detection or increase the immediate cost of engaging in the prohibited activity (or both), and so should reduce the likelihood of criminal behavior. These laws aim to incapacitate people outside of prison. Yet, empirical researchers to date have found essentially no reliable evidence …

Prosecuting The Cia: Does The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act Allow For Liability?, Sam Taterka

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Biblical Fool And The Brander: The Law And Economics Of Propertization In American Trademark Law, William P. Kratzke

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

Isaiah 35:8, which tells of 'fools" upon a highway who shall not err, became authority for the position that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) should protect fools from deception. This Article examines the biblical passage in context and concludes that it does not support protection of unthinking, credulous people. Ensuing FTC orders based on witnesses' speculation of how fools would construe particular claims actually harmed fools. The FTC retreated Unfortunately, the objective of protecting fools from deception has taken over § 43(a) Lanham Act jurisprudence-but now sellers speculate in competitor lawsuits how fools will construe competitors' claims and undertake to …

Switch Hitters: How League Involvement In Daily Fantasy Sports Could End The Prohibition Of Sports Gambling, Jordan Meddy

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Whether in the form of lotto tickets or casino table games, gambling is legally permitted in some way in virtually every U.S. state. Yet, in all but a handful of jurisdictions, federal law prohibits wagering on sporting events or professional athletes in any form. Several economically challenged states, particularly New Jersey, have been trying to authorize sports gambling within their borders as a way to raise tax revenues and support their local gambling industries. While these attempts have thus far been unsuccessful, Daily Fantasy Sports have simultaneously experienced a meteoric rise, becoming a multi-billion dollar industry. This Note examines the …

The Complicated Economics Of Prison Reform, John F. Pfaff

Michigan Law Review

Two recent books on prison growth directly address the relationship between penal change and economic conditions: Hadar Aviram’s Cheap on Crime and Marie Gottschalk’s Caught. Aviram’s is the more optimistic of the two accounts, arguing that there is at least some potential in an economic-based reform effort. Gottschalk, on the other hand, fears not only that economic-based efforts could fail to lead to significant reforms, but that they could actually make prison life worse for inmates if states cut funding and support without cutting populations. Both books make many provocative points, but both also suffer from some surprising omissions. …

The Defend Trade Secrets Act Of 2015, S. 1890, H.R. 3326, 114th Congress (2015), Joseph K.C. Doukmetzian

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Abandoned Criminal Attempts: An Economic Analysis, Murat C. Mungan

Faculty Scholarship

An attempt is 'abandoned' if the criminal, despite having a chance to continue with his criminal plan, forgoes the opportunity to do so. A regime that makes abandonment a defense to criminal attempts provides an incentive to the offender to withdraw from his criminal conduct prior to completing the previously intended offense. However, the same regime may induce offenders to initiate criminal plans more often by reducing the expected costs associated with such plans. The former effect is called the marginal deterrence effect and the latter is called the ex-ante deterrence effect of the abandonment defense. This Article formalizes a …

Corruption And Development: The Need For International Investigations With A Multijurisdictional Approach Involving Multilateral Development Banks And National Authorities, Juan G. Ronderos, Michelle Ratpan, Andrea Osorio Rincon

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

We argue that while Multilateral Development Banks (“MDBs”) and national governments have mechanisms to fight corruption, the objectives and outcomes of these enforcement mechanisms diverge. MDBs are interested in the causes and effects of corruption from a development perspective and, as such, tend to sanction small and medium enterprises and individuals, while national governments are focused on a more punitive outcome, targeting larger multinational corporations. This article examines the enforcement objectives articulated in national legislation, namely the US Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act and its Canadian counterpart, the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, as well as several Canadian cases, …

What's It Worth To Keep A Secret?, Gavin C. Reid, Nicola Searle, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Duke Law & Technology Review

This article is the first major study of protection and valuation of trade secrets under federal criminal law. Trade secrecy is more important than ever as an economic complement and substitute for other intellectual property protections, particularly patents. Accordingly, U.S. public policy correctly places a growing emphasis on characterizing the scope of trade secrets, creating incentives for their productive use, and imposing penalties for their theft. Yet amid this complex ecosystem of legal doctrine, economic policy, commercial strategy, and enforcement, there is little research or consensus on how to assign value to trade secrets. One reason for this gap is …

The Role Of Race, Poverty, Intellectual Disability, And Mental Illness In The Decline Of The Death Penalty, Stephen B. Bright

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Divisibility Of Crime, Jessica A. Roth

Articles

Near the end of the Supreme Court's 2012-2013 term, the Court decided Descamps v. United States, which concerned the application of the federal Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). The ACCA is a recidivist statute that vastly increases the penalties for persons convicted of federal firearms offenses if they have previously been convicted of certain qualifying felonies. Descamps represents the Court's most recent word on the so-called categorical approach, which directs courts to consider the elements of a prior offense of conviction, rather than the underlying facts of the crime, in determining whether the prior conviction "counts" for purposes of applying …

The Effect Of Statutory Rape Laws On Teen Birth Rates, Michael D. Frakes, Matthew C. Harding

Faculty Scholarship

Policymakers have often been explicit in expanding statutory rape laws to reduce teenage pregnancies and live births by teenage mothers, often with the goal of reducing associated welfare outlays. In this paper, we explore whether expansions in such laws are indeed associated with reductions in teen birth rates. In order to codify statutory-rape-law expansions, we use a national micro-level sample of sexual encounters to simulate the degree to which such encounters generally implicate the relevant laws. By codifying statutory-rape laws in terms of their potential reach into sexual encounters, as opposed to using crude binary treatment variables, this simulation approach …

Revisited 2015: Protection Of U.S. Trade Secret Assets: Critical Amendments To The Economic Espionage Act Of 1996, 14 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 476 (2015), R. Mark Halligan

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

In order to protect the national and economic interests of the United States, the Economic Espionage Act was enacted in 1996. Although intended to prevent and deter trade secret theft, the EEA is limited to criminal prosecutions. Critical amendments to the EEA are required to create a civil cause of action in the new information-based economy and the international marketplace. In 2008, the author recommended two critical amendments to the Economic Espionage Act that have been vetted and have been the subject of legislative proposals for the past 7 years. The author now revisits developments since 2008 and underscores the …

Death Penalty Drugs And The International Moral Marketplace, James Gibson, Corinna Barrett Lain

Law Faculty Publications

Across the country, executions have become increasingly problematic as states have found it more and more difficult to procure the drugs they need for lethal injection.At first blush, the drug shortage appears to be the result of pharmaceutical industry norms; companies that make drugs for healing (mostly in Europe) have refused to be merchants of death. But closer inspection reveals that European governments are the true change agents here. For decades, those governments have tried-and failed-to promote abolition of the death penalty through traditional instruments of international law. Turns out that the best way to export their abolitionist norms was …

The ’73 Graft: Punishment, Political Economy, And The Genealogy Of Morals, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

In this essay, I explore the place of a genealogy of morals within the context of a history of political economy. More specifically, I investigate the types of moralization – of criminals and delinquents, of the disorderly, but also of political economic systems, of workers and managers, of rules and rule-breaking – that are necessary and integral to making a population accept new styles of political and economic governance, especially the punitive institutions that accompany modern political economies in the contemporary period.

The marriage of political economy and a genealogy of morals: this essay explores how the moralization of certain …

Sales Suppression As A Service (Ssaas) & The Apple Store Solution, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

The problem of sales suppression fraud is estimated to cost state and local governments $20 billion annually ($2 billion in New York restaurants alone). Modern sales suppression (skimming) is carried out with technology (Zappers and Phantom-ware). Nine undercover sting operations in and around Manhattan and the Bronx by investigators working for New York’s Department of Taxation and Finance (NY-DT&F) have identified the SSaaS variant of modern skimming.

A striking example of SSaaS may be unfolding in the $1 million sales suppression case against Congressman Michael Grimm (R-NY). It is alleged that Grimm skimmed sales from his Healthalicious restaurant in Manhattan, …

Deferred Prosecutions In The Corporate Sector: Lessons From Libor, Justin O'Brien, Olivia Dixon

Seattle University Law Review

Since 2008, the global economic downturn has significantly in-creased operating pressures on major corporations. Additionally, there has been a corresponding increase in corporate tolerance for corruption, which has coincided with a marked preference by regulators in settling, rather than litigating, enforcement actions. This Article argues that the expansion of prosecutorial authority without appropriate accountability restraints is a major tactical and strategic error. It evaluates whether the mechanism can be made subject to effective oversight. It argues that the current frame-work in the United States is highly problematic, leading to settlements that generate newspaper headlines but not necessarily cultural change. It …

Innovation And Incarceration: An Economic Analysis Of Criminal Intellectual Property Law, Christopher Buccafusco, Jonathan S. Masur

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Behavioral Justification For Escalating Punishment Schemes, Murat C. Mungan

Scholarly Publications

The standard two-period law enforcement model is considered in a setting where individuals usually, but not exclusively, commit crimes only after comparing expected costs and benefits. Where escalating punishment schemes are present, there is an inherent value in keeping a clean criminal record; a person with a record may unintentionally become a repeat offender if he fails to exert self-control, and be punished more severely. If the punishment for repeat offenders is sufficiently high, one may rationally forgo the opportunity of committing a profitable crime today to avoid being sanctioned as a repeat offender in the future. Therefore, partial deterrence …

Criminal Law Pays: Penal Law's Contribution To China's Economic Development, Margaret K. Lewis

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

China's rapid rise to become the second largest economy in the world is nothing short of extraordinary. When economic reforms took off in the late 1970s, China had been without formal criminal law for three decades. China's economic development since the launch of the reform period has occurred directly alongside the development of its criminal law, but the academic literature has failed to ask what role criminal law plays in China's impressive growth. This Article argues that not only has the People's Republic of China leadership historically used criminal law in service of economic ends but also, going forward, criminal …

Inmates For Rent, Sovereignty For Sale: The Global Prison Market, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

In 2009, Belgium and the Netherlands announced a deal to send approximately 500 Belgian inmates to Dutch prisons, in exchange for an annual payment of £26 million. The arrangement was unprecedented, but justified as beneficial to both nations: Belgium had too many prisoners and not enough prisons, whereas the Netherlands had too many prisons and not enough prisoners. The deal has yet to be replicated, nor has it triggered sustained criticism or received significant scholarly treatment. This Article aims to fill this void by examining the exchange and its possible implications for a global market in prisoners and prison space. …

Export Controls: A Contemporary History, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides highlights of my recently published book Export Controls: A Contemporary History. Describes the roles played by multiple U.S. Government agencies and congressional oversight committees in this policymaking arena including the Commerce, Defense, State, and Treasury Departments. It also reviews the roles played by international government organizations such as the Missile Technology Control Regime, export oriented businesses, and research intensive universities.

Rational Criminal Addictions, Manuel A. Utset

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Inchoate Crimes Revisited: A Behavioral Economics Perspective, Manuel A. Utset

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Zappers & Employment Tax Fraud, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Beyond the grey area of worker misclassifications and general employment tax irregularities there are darker employment relationships where workers are intentionally paid in cash “off-the-books” or “under-the-table.” Grey employment relationships present civil enforcement issues that may become criminal; darker-relationships are criminal from the beginning. Zappers are found on the dark side.

Zappers are fraud-technologies that automatically (and remotely) skim cash from electronic cash registers (ECRs) or back room point of sales (POS) systems. Globally, tax auditors are finding that Zappers frequently provide the cash that is used to compensate “under-the-table” workers. In fact, a Zapper appears to be at the …

Response To Comments By Professors Baer, Candeub, Medwed, Painter, And Prentice, Manuel A. Utset

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Corporate Actors, Corporate Crimes And Time-Inconsistent Preference, Manuel A. Utset

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The Poverty Defense, Michele Estrin Gilman

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.