Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law and Economics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Law and Economics

Behavioral Ethics, Behavioral Compliance, Donald C. Langevoort Jul 2015

Behavioral Ethics, Behavioral Compliance, Donald C. Langevoort

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The design of an effective legal compliance system for an organization fearing prosecution for white-collar crime or regulatory violations requires skill at predicting human behavior. It is entirely plausible to use the economist’s simplifying assumptions of rational choice and pecuniary self-interest in making these predictions. But the realism of these assumptions has been under attack for decades now, suggesting that we should at least consider more nuanced behavioral possibilities when designing and implementing compliance programs. The label “behavioral compliance” can be attached to the design and management of compliance that draws from this wider range of behavioral predictions about individual …


The Evolution And Vitality Of Merger Presumptions: A Decision-Theoretic Approach, Steven C. Salop Jun 2015

The Evolution And Vitality Of Merger Presumptions: A Decision-Theoretic Approach, Steven C. Salop

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article reviews the formulation and evolution of the Philadelphia National Bank anticompetitive presumption through the lens of decision theory and Bayes Law. It explains how the economic theory, empirical evidence and experience are used to determine a presumption and how that presumption interacts with the reliability of relevant evidence to rationally set the appropriate burden of production and burden of persuasion to rebut the presumption. The article applies this reasoning to merger presumptions. It also sketches out a number of non-market share structural factors that might be used to supplement or replace the current legal and enforcement presumptions for …


Inference Under Stability Of Risk Preferences, Levon Barseghyan, Francesca Molinari, Joshua C. Teitelbaum Jun 2015

Inference Under Stability Of Risk Preferences, Levon Barseghyan, Francesca Molinari, Joshua C. Teitelbaum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

We leverage the assumption that preferences are stable across contexts to partially identify and conduct inference on the parameters of a structural model of risky choice. Working with data on households' deductible choices across three lines of insurance coverage and a model that nests expected utility theory plus a range of non-expected utility models, we perform a revealed preference analysis that yields household-specific bounds on the model parameters. We then impose stability and other structural assumptions to tighten the bounds, and we explore what we can learn about households' risk preferences from the intervals defined by the bounds. We further …


In Praise Of Ex Ante Regulation, Brian Galle Jan 2015

In Praise Of Ex Ante Regulation, Brian Galle

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Timing is an important consideration in regulatory design. Corrective taxes are usually imposed before or contemporaneously with the harmful activity they are aimed at preventing, while tort awards are assessed ex post, in its aftermath. Patents and research grants both can encourage innovation, but patents pay off only after the invention is marketed. In a world of perfect information, fully rational actors, and complete credit or insurance markets, time would not matter. In the real world, though, the failure of one or more of these assumptions can change dramatically the impact of a regulatory option. For example, prior commentators have …