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Articles 331 - 353 of 353

Full-Text Articles in Law and Economics

Making Money: Leverage And Private Sector Money Creation, Margaret M. Blair Mar 2013

Making Money: Leverage And Private Sector Money Creation, Margaret M. Blair

Seattle University Law Review

Contrary to the beliefs of most macroeconomists, the financial sector in the United States has grown too large in the last few decades as a consequence of financial innovation that has encouraged the use of too much “leverage” (financing with debt) by financial institutions (as well as by consumers and other borrowers). In Part II, I connect the dots between excessive leverage, risk, and financial market volatility. In Part III, I explore the role that the “shadow-banking sector” has had in driving leverage. In Part IV, I explain why leverage at the level of financial institutions matters for the macroeconomy. …


The Governance And Disclosure Of The Firm As An Enterprise Entity, Yuri Biondi Mar 2013

The Governance And Disclosure Of The Firm As An Enterprise Entity, Yuri Biondi

Seattle University Law Review

During recent decades, the rapid pace of financial markets involving new modes of management, governance, and regulation has framed business firms. This corporate drift toward financialization is summarized under the “shareholder value” label. What do financial markets do? Unequivocally, they organize trading on shares that are securities: tradable financial entitlements established by law, which formalize expectations, and claims of financial rents paid by the issuing company. Actually, how continued quotation on share exchanges came to be the barometer of economic or social welfare is a different matter. The latter adoption has required quite a great leap from “the euthanasia of …


Rationales And Designs To Implement An Institutional Big Bang In The Governance Of Global Finance, Emilios Avgouleas Mar 2013

Rationales And Designs To Implement An Institutional Big Bang In The Governance Of Global Finance, Emilios Avgouleas

Seattle University Law Review

The colossal challenges facing international finance pertain to both its governance system and its dual utility and speculative functions, which have become ever more intertwined with the advent of financial innovation. In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), a number of significant reforms are under way to address the second issue, including additional capital and liquidity requirements for banks, measures to battle interconnectedness in the financial sector, new resolution regimes that would allow banks to fail more easily, and stricter frameworks for bank supervision and monitoring of systemic risk. Yet limited progress has been made with respect to …


Framing Address: A Framework For Analyzing Financial Market Transformation, Steven L. Schwarcz Mar 2013

Framing Address: A Framework For Analyzing Financial Market Transformation, Steven L. Schwarcz

Seattle University Law Review

The title of this Symposium originally was “Rethinking Financial and Securities Markets.” It is, of course, somewhat presumptuous for scholars to try to rethink financial markets per se. Markets, including financial markets, are driven primarily by supply and demand. But scholars can and should try to influence the future of financial markets by rethinking their fundamental aspects. This Symposium presents work from leading scholars in the fields of law, economics, finance, and accounting. I will try to frame the discussion from the perspectives of these four disciplines. First, however, we need to identify what it is about financial markets that …


Debt And Discipline: Neoliberal Political Economy And The Working Classes, Tayyab Mahmud Jan 2013

Debt And Discipline: Neoliberal Political Economy And The Working Classes, Tayyab Mahmud

Faculty Articles

Over the last three decades, neoliberal restructuring of the economy created a symbiosis of debt and discipline. New legal regimes and strategic use of monetary policy displaced Keynesian welfare, facilitated financialization of the economy, broke the power of organized labor, and expanded debt to sustain aggregate demand. Public laws and policies created a field of possibility within which financial markets extended their reach and brought ever-increasing sections of the working classes and the marginalized within the ambit of the credit economy. Reordered public policies and new norms of personal responsibility demarcated the horizon within which the economically vulnerable pursued strategies …


The Irs Tea Party Controversy And Administrative Discretion, Lily Kahng Jan 2013

The Irs Tea Party Controversy And Administrative Discretion, Lily Kahng

Faculty Articles

The IRS Tea Party controversy erupted when the Treasury Inspector General issued a report finding that IRS employees in the Cincinnati office had targeted certain organizations’ applications for tax exempt status for heightened scrutiny, in particular singling out groups with “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names. A media firestorm ensued, with fevered speculation about a hidden political agenda extending all the way to the White House. A complete picture of the controversy has yet to emerge, but as of the writing of this Essay, it appears that the worst suspicions about political bias are unfounded. Nonetheless, the IRS has …


Controlling Above-Cost Predation: An Alternative To Weyerhaeuser And Brooke Group, Jack Kirkwood Jan 2008

Controlling Above-Cost Predation: An Alternative To Weyerhaeuser And Brooke Group, Jack Kirkwood

Faculty Articles

This article proposes a new legal standard for predatory pricing, predatory bidding, and possibly other forms of exclusionary pricing - the welfare/economic sense standard. Under this standard, the plaintiff would have to show that the challenged conduct was not only profitable to the defendant but harmful to the long-run welfare of consumers or suppliers. Moreover, even if the plaintiff made that showing, the defendant would escape liability if it proved that its conduct made economic sense without regard to its anticompetitive effects. The article argues that the new standard is superior to the below-cost/recoupment standard of Brooke Group and Weyerhaeuser …


The H’Aint In The (School) House: The Interest Convergence Paradigm In State Legislatures And School Finance Reform, Bryan Adamson Jan 2006

The H’Aint In The (School) House: The Interest Convergence Paradigm In State Legislatures And School Finance Reform, Bryan Adamson

Faculty Articles

The purpose of this essay is to examine recent school funding litigation to illuminate the interest convergence paradigm, using the school finance reform controversy in Ohio as an example. Part I describes how the school finance reform debate is an extension of our nation's desegregation history. Part II looks at the school funding controversy in Ohio, highlighting legislator and citizen attitudes toward school finance litigation and public school funding along racial and geographic lines. Part III identifies six interests which emerge in the school funding dispute, arguing that these interests must be taken into account by legislators in crafting school …


The Entrepreneur And The Theory Of The Modern Corporation, Charles O'Kelley Jan 2006

The Entrepreneur And The Theory Of The Modern Corporation, Charles O'Kelley

Faculty Articles

The foremost description of the classic entrepreneur, immediately prior to the Great Depression and now, was presented by Frank Knight in his seminal work, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit. In this Article, I will explicate Knight's theory of the entrepreneur and show how it relates to both the Berle-Means Paradigm and the nexus-of-contracts theory of the corporation. My effort here is in part intellectual history and in part the tentative beginnings of a new positive account of the corporation. In the latter regard, this Article takes only the first step in what may prove a quite exhaustive effort to re-plow the …


The Practical Soul Of Business Ethics: The Corporate Manager's Dilemma And The Social Teaching Of The Catholic Church, Leo L. Clarke, Bruce P. Frohnen, Edward C. Lyons Jan 2005

The Practical Soul Of Business Ethics: The Corporate Manager's Dilemma And The Social Teaching Of The Catholic Church, Leo L. Clarke, Bruce P. Frohnen, Edward C. Lyons

Seattle University Law Review

This Article focuses on and attempts to dispel an overly narrow view of the moral responsibilities of corporations and their managers. Many businessmen and lawyers, relying on prevailing approaches to business ethics, labor under the misperception that the moral ladder in the business world has only one rung: "Be honest." Americans, however, should, can and do expect more from the managers of our large corporations, and virtually every Fortune 100 company publicly espouses a "social responsibility" far exceeding mere honesty. Further, as is demonstrated, American jurisprudence is consistent with those expectations. This Article's thesis is that Catholic Social Teaching provides …


The Code For Corporate Citizenship: States Should Amend Statutes Governing Corporations And Enable Corporations To Be Good Citizens, Elisa Scalise Jan 2005

The Code For Corporate Citizenship: States Should Amend Statutes Governing Corporations And Enable Corporations To Be Good Citizens, Elisa Scalise

Seattle University Law Review

Corporations are important social actors. They are created by law and create products, services, jobs, and wealth upon which modem societies rely. Investments injected by corporations bring jobs, capital, and technology to communities, thereby raising living standards and creating derivative rights such as education, health and housing, and political freedoms. Modem corporations allow entrepreneurs to raise massive amounts of capital for large projects and research, which results in innovation and a wide range of products and services. However, these same corporations can also cause social harm. They are structured in such a way that it is possible for agents in …


Maximum Vertical Price Fixing From Albrecht Through Brunswick To Khan: An Antitrust Odyssey, James M. Fesmire Jan 2001

Maximum Vertical Price Fixing From Albrecht Through Brunswick To Khan: An Antitrust Odyssey, James M. Fesmire

Seattle University Law Review

The article attempts to sort out some of this confusion caused by the legal journey from Albrecht to Khan by portraying that long road as a successful example of the antitrust injury doctrine's ability to bring substantive antitrust law into compliance with the goals of antitrust. First, the article examines how the existence of successive monopoly provides an incentive for maximum vertical price fixing and how maximum vertical price fixing leads to an increase in consumer welfare. Second, it examines manufacturer alternatives to vertical price restraints, finding them less attractive in terms of social welfare. Third, the article analyzes other …


Foreword: The Many Passions Of Teaching Corporations, Charles O'Kelley Jan 2000

Foreword: The Many Passions Of Teaching Corporations, Charles O'Kelley

Faculty Articles

Teachers of Corporations share a passion for their subject and consider this first course in the business law curriculum to have fundamental importance for all law-trained professionals. Seemingly, however, we agree on little else, including the substantive focus of the course, the nature of the course materials, and the insights that teachers should convey. In fact, Corporations differs dramatically from school to school. Some teachers focus substantial attention on unincorporated business associations, while others cover only corporation law. Some who teach exclusively about the corporation emphasize closely held firms, while others highlight the law related to publicly traded entities. Likewise, …


The Implications Of National Security Safeguards On The Commercialization Of Remote Sensing Imagery, Youssef Sneifer Jan 1996

The Implications Of National Security Safeguards On The Commercialization Of Remote Sensing Imagery, Youssef Sneifer

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment offers a critique of the national security restrictions contained in the United States policy and regulations and the uncertainty they inject into the commercialization of remote sensing imagery. After providing a brief technical description of remote sensing technology and the market realities associated with remote sensing imagery, this Comment analyzes the legislation and regulations affecting the private sector's commercialization and dissemination of remote sensing imagery with a special emphasis on national security concerns. Specifically, it reviews the Clinton Administration's policy with regard to the commercialization of remote sensing imagery, tracing its origins to the international obligations of the …


Appendix: The Sleeves From Our Vest: Naming A Perpetuities Non-Event, Mark Reutlinger, John Weaver Jan 1994

Appendix: The Sleeves From Our Vest: Naming A Perpetuities Non-Event, Mark Reutlinger, John Weaver

Faculty Articles

Professors Mark Reutlinger and John Weaver examine the conceptual dilemma that Professor Reutlinger encountered in the course of developing the series of diagrams to illustrate the Rule Against Perpetuities described in the accompanying article. To describe it briefly (if not simply), the perpetuities period for a special or testamentary power of appointment begins when the power is created (not exercised), and it ends when the appointed interest vests. Applying the "relation back" doctrine, the appointment is treated, for perpetuities purposes, as if it were a gift by the donor, rather than the donee. Under the "second look" doctrine, however, one …


Sex Stories: A Review Of Sex And Reason, Margaret Chon Jan 1993

Sex Stories: A Review Of Sex And Reason, Margaret Chon

Faculty Articles

In this review of Sex Stories-A Review Of Sex And Reason by Richard A. Posner, Professor Chon explores the implications of Posner’s exuberant faith in bioeconomic reasoning, unalloyed by any of the late modernist or postmodernist challenges to the nature and limits of science and its transformative potential. In doing so, Professor Chon attempts three things. First, she discusses some of his sociobiological assertions in order to demonstrate that evolutionary biology consists of a much richer and more contradictory set of assertions than Posner would have us believe. Even within the empiricist framework, therefore, Posner leaves out many stories that …


Economics And The Environment: Trading Debt And Technology For Nature, Catherine O'Neill, Cass R. Sunstein Jan 1992

Economics And The Environment: Trading Debt And Technology For Nature, Catherine O'Neill, Cass R. Sunstein

Faculty Articles

In this article, Professor O’Neill and Professor Sunstein first explore and suggest improvements in current debt-for-nature swaps, with the ultimate aim of defending the use of economic incentives and Paretian principles in the context of international environmental policy. Second, they examine some of the limitations of the exchange of debt for nature, and thus suggest an alternative exchange that overcomes those limitations. The exchange they envision is quite simple. Developed nations would transfer to developing nations environmentally advanced technologies, particularly technologies designed to increase efficient energy use or to replace non-renewable sources with renewable sources of energy. In return, developing …


A Modern Proposal, Sidney Delong Jan 1992

A Modern Proposal, Sidney Delong

Faculty Articles

This article humorously explains Jonathan Swift’s intention when he wrote “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country.” Swift was not writing satirically, his analysis was purely written from an economic standpoint as was Landes and Posner’s modern proposal. Landes and Posner recognized the allocative efficiencies and wealth gains that can be realized when property rights are created in noncommodities, such as people, as did Jonathan Swift.


Opting In And Out Of Fiduciary Duties In Cooperative Ventures: Refining The So-Called Coasean Contract Theory, Charles O'Kelley Jan 1992

Opting In And Out Of Fiduciary Duties In Cooperative Ventures: Refining The So-Called Coasean Contract Theory, Charles O'Kelley

Faculty Articles

Professor O’Kelley comments on a familiar problem in the law of closely held business associations - the alleged exploitation of weaker or minority investors by stronger or majority participants. The fact pattern is simple. At the outset of the cooperative venture, a stronger participant assumes the role of proprietor, partner, or majority shareholder, while the weaker participant assumes the role of agent, partner, or minority shareholder. For whatever reason, the venturers do not explicitly guarantee or protect the weaker participant’s right to income or continued participation in the venture. Consequently, at some later date the stronger participant reduces or eliminates …


The Efficiency Of A Disgorgement As A Remedy For Breach Of Contract, Sidney Delong Jan 1989

The Efficiency Of A Disgorgement As A Remedy For Breach Of Contract, Sidney Delong

Faculty Articles

Economic analysis suggests that to give a contract promise a general remedy that would require a breaching promisor to disgorge any benefit of breach would hinder the efficient post-contractual reallocation of performance resources. This article explores certain situations in which disgorgement appears to be an efficient remedy for breach of contract, including cases in which the breaching party refuses to pay contract damages at the time of breach. A rule permitting promisees to recover as "prejudgment interest" the breacher's benefit from withholding payment of damages would, in theory, be efficient in allocating the risk of the breacher's credit worthiness to …


North Carolina's Medicaid Program: The Effects Of The Reagan-Era Budget Reductions, Ken Wing Jan 1984

North Carolina's Medicaid Program: The Effects Of The Reagan-Era Budget Reductions, Ken Wing

Faculty Articles

This article is principally a description of the current program and the legislative and administrative changes made in response to the recent federal budget cuts, an assessment of the state's current cost containment strategy, and an analysis of the options facing North Carolina in the years to come.


Fear And Loathing In Perpetuities, John Weaver Jan 1981

Fear And Loathing In Perpetuities, John Weaver

Faculty Articles

Professor Weaver explains how we need to look at how the Rule Against Perpetuities is taught and how it may be taught more successfully. The Rule presents its greatest challenge to those who should know it best-law professors. If law professors can teach the Rule to the future judges, lawyers, and legislators who deal daily with the Rule, then mistakes will not be made and reform will succeed. In this essay, Professor Weaver presents a method that he has developed for teaching the Rule. While some of it is no more than a general application of normal law school methods, …


Cash Deposits - Burdens And Barriers In Access To Utility Services, John B. Kirkwood Jan 1972

Cash Deposits - Burdens And Barriers In Access To Utility Services, John B. Kirkwood

Faculty Articles

The utilities are free from statutory limitations on their deposit rules, practices differ, but most utilities use very broad criteria of income and net worth to select those consumers from whom they will demand a deposit. Under these broad deposit rules it is not surprising that the poor pay virtually all deposits, or that often high income residential areas are exempted altogether from the impact of cash deposits. Such rules impose severe burdens on depositors without proportionately benefitting the utilities, for deposits usually save utilities insignificant amounts of money. For example, estimations of the California Public Utilities Commission in 1967 …