Law and Economics Commons^™

Vicarious Windfalls, Justin Sevier

Scholarly Publications

The vicarious liability doctrine, which holds third parties responsible for the legal obligations of their duly authorized agents, was designed in part to ensure that tort victims are not undercompensated by insolvent agent wrongdoers. But many legal scholars are highly critical of the doctrine and suggest that fact finders’ systematic biases-particularly with respect to corporate third parties-cause unworthy tort plaintiffs to be overcompensated at the expense of innocent, deep-pocket corporate defendants. These scholars have offered little empirical evidence for these claims and, in fact, behavioral research suggests that their predictions are incorrect.

This Article introduces the concept of the vicarious …

The Politics And Psychology Of Gasoline Taxes: An Empirical Study, Shi-Ling Hsu

Scholarly Publications

Economists are beginning to form a consensus that a carbon tax is the most effective and cost-effective way to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. The insight of economists and other policy analysts is that, in the greenhouse gas context, the design of cap-and-trade programs creates so many opportunities for rent-seeking that they may not be very cost-effective, and may not reduce greenhouse gas emissions at all. Carbon tax proposals are appealing because they are so simple and sensible that rent-seeking would have to be very audacious to succeed.

Carbon tax proposals, however, have divided economists from almost everybody else. In …

Time-Inconsistent Management & The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Manuel A. Utset

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.