Law and Economics Commons^™

The Digital Currency Doppelganger: Regulatory Challenge Or Harbinger Of The New Economy?, Peter C. Tucker

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note argues that enacting new restrictive regulations for digital currencies in the United States is unnecessary and potentially counterproductive. It posits that existing anti-money laundering (AML) regulations are sufficient to address illicit activities associated with digital currencies. The author advocates for a wait-and-see approach, emphasizing the need for international coordination and the risks of driving the industry offshore, which could reduce regulatory oversight and tax revenue.

Competition Law And The International Transport Sectors, Sock Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This article charts the evolving regulation of cooperation and coordination between international transport firms, in particular those operating within the liner shipping and international air transport sectors. There has been a long history of exemption of these sectors from the rules and regulations of antitrust or competition law. In the past three decades, regulatory reforms and privatization have, however, subjected these sectors to competitive forces that have transformed these industries. With the introduction of competition law in many jurisdictions, the justifications for their continued exemption have come under intense scrutiny. In the late 19705, the US initiated deregulation of its …

Rational Ignorance, Rational Closed-Mindedness, And Modern Economic Formalism In Contract Law, Shawn J. Bayern

Scholarly Publications

This article considers the relevance of several kinds of post-offense events for the justice of punishment under a fair-play account of retributivism. If the justice of punishment depends on something like an offender-centered tally of benefits and burdens, it may be difficult to explain why offenders should be punished by a criminal justice system in situations where they have been punished privately or have lost the relevant benefits they may have received from their offenses.

My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder?
That cannot be; since I am …

The Fault Principle As The Chameleon Of Contract Law: A Market Function Approach, Stefan Grundmann

Michigan Law Review

This Article begins with a comparative law survey showing that all legal systems do not opt exclusively for fault liability or strict liability in contract law, but often adopt a more nuanced approach. This approach includes intermediate solutions such as reversing the burden of proof, using a market ("objective") standard of care, distinguishing between different types of contracts, and providing a "second chance" to breaching parties. Taking this starting point seriously and arguing that it is highly unlikely that all legal systems err, this Article argues that the core question is how and when each liability regime should prevail or …

Between Formulary Apportionment And The Oecd Guidelines: A Proposal For Reconciliation, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

While there have been few decided cases under the 1995 Transfer Pricing regulations and the OECD Guidelines, it is clear by now that the transfer pricing problem is as bad as it ever was. That is why my co-authors Kimberly Clausing and Michael Durst and I have recently re-proposed adopting Formulary Apportionment (FA). However, it is clear from the reactions we received that it is unlikely we will persuade advocates of the ALS and in particular the OECD that FA is the way forward (although this may change if the Obama Administration were to press the issue, or if the …

Massachusetts Zappers - Collecting The Sales Tax That Has Already Been Paid, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

No other New England state is as vulnerable to Zappers as is the State of Massachusetts. Zappers and related software programming, Phantom-ware, facilitate an old tax fraud – skimming cash receipts. In this instance skimming is performed with modern electronic cash registers (ECRs).

Zappers are a global revenue problem, but to the best of this author’s knowledge they have not been uncovered in Massachusetts. A global perspective says: it is highly unlikely that Zappers are not in the Commonwealth – we just need to find them. In fact, using a Quebec template, tax losses from Zappers and related frauds in …

Land Virtues, Eduardo M. Peñalver

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article has two goals. First, I explore some of the descriptive and normative shortcomings of traditional law and economics discussions of the ownership and use of land. These market-centered approaches struggle in different ways with features of land that distinguish it from other "commodities." The complexity of land - its intrinsic complexity, but even more importantly the complex ways in which human beings interact with it - undermines the notion that owners will focus on a single value, such as wealth, in making decisions about their land. Adding to the equation land's "memory," by which I mean the combined …

Order Out Of Chaos: Products Liability Design-Defect Law, Dominick Vetri

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Vat Derogations In Germany, Austria, Denmark, And Estonia: Use And Enjoyment Rules, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

When the Czech Republic elected (effective January 1, 2009) to derogate from the standard rules for determining the place of supply for intangible services, pursuant to Article 58 of the Recast VAT Directive (RVD), it was following the lead of ten other Member States. This paper considers four of those other jurisdictions - Germany, Austria, Estonia, and Denmark - and compares their derogations with that of the Czech Republic.

In each instance a use and enjoyment standard determines the place of supply for certain intangible services. The affected transactions are (potentially) wide ranging. In each instance non-EU countries are on …

Evolutionary Theory And The Origin Of Property Rights, James E. Krier

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

Legal scholars have never settled on a satisfactory account of the evolution of property rights. The touchstone for virtually all discussion, Harold Demsetz’s Toward a Theory of Property Rights, has a number of well-known (and not so well-known) shortcomings, perhaps because it was never intended to be taken as an evolutionary explanation in the first place. There is, in principle at least, a pretty straightforward fix for the sort of evolutionary approach pursued by followers of Demsetz, but even then that approach – call it the conventional approach – fails to account for very early property rights, right at the …

Bailouts, Buy-Ins, And Ballyhoo, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The bailout strategy now being pursued by Treasury under the recently authorized Troubled Asset Relief Plan, if “strategy” it can be called, remains obscure and erratic at best. All the while markets remain jittery and credit remains tight, as the underlying source of our present financial jitters—continued decline in the housing market and still mounting foreclosures—goes unaddressed. This piece proposes an interesting and novel approach to solving the financial problem. If it works out, it would eventually minimize the cost to the government.

Incidence And Accidents: Regulation Of Executive Compensation Through The Tax Code, Joy Mullane

Working Paper Series

Congress has enacted a number of tax provisions that aim to penalize companies and their executives when the executive is paid more than Congress thinks is desirable. Congress was motivated to enact these provisions by intense public sentiments regarding executive compensation levels during times of economic turmoil. This article demonstrates, however, that not only are these provisions ineffective at reducing executive compensation levels, but they penalize the wrong people. This article reveals that the penalties do not significantly fall on the executives that Congress was targeting with enactment of the penalties. Instead, these penalties impose costs on a variety of …

What The New Treasury Must Do, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

After a number of heady false starts, against the backdrop of threatened financial catastrophe, Congress and the White House enacted a stopgap financial “bailout”plan early in October 2008. From that point onward the “plan” has repeatedly morphed, morphed again, and morphed back through a string of remarkably fleeting guises. One suspects this dynamic will continue, at least for a while, as a new president and Congress find their footing in the first half of 2009.

Bringing It All Back Home: How To Save Main Street, Ignore K Street, And Thereby Save Wall Street, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Why Paretians Can’T Prescribe: Preferences, Principles, And Imperatives In Law And Policy, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Recent years have witnessed two linked revivals in the legal academy. The first is renewed interest in articulating a normative “master principle” by which legal rules might be evaluated. The second is renewed interest in the prospect that a variant of Benthamite “utility” might serve as the requisite touchstone. One influential such variant now in circulation is what the Article calls “Paretian welfarism.”

This Article rejects Paretian welfarism and advocates an alternative it calls “fair welfare.” It does so because Paretian welfarism is inconsistent with ethical, social, and legal prescription, while fair welfare is what we have been groping for …

Has Corporate Law Failed? Addressing Proposals For Reform, Antony Page

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this Review discusses the modem "nexus of contracts" approach to corporations and highlights how Greenfield's views differ. Part II examines corporate goals and purposes, suggesting that Greenfield overstates the impact of the shareholder-primacy norm and does not offer a preferable alternative. Part III critiques the means to the ends--Greenfield's proposals for changing the mechanics of corporate governance. Although several of his proposals are intriguing, they seem unlikely to achieve their pro-social aims. This Review remains skeptical, in part because-even given its problems-the U.S. "director-centric governance structure has created the most successful economy the world has ever seen." …

The (Misunderstood) Genius Of American Corporate Law, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

In this Reply, I respond to comments by Bill Bratton, Larry Cunningham, and Todd Henderson on my recent paper - Trapped in a Metaphor: The Limited Implications of Federalism for Corporate Governance. I begin by reiterating my basic thesis - that state competition should be understood to have little consequence for corporate governance, if (as charter competition's advocates assume) capital-market-driven managerial competition is also at work. I then consider some of the thoughtful critiques of this claim, before suggesting ways in which the comments highlight just the kind of comparative institutional analysis my paper counsels. Rather than a stark choice …

Changes To The Czech Republic's Vat Act: The Use And Enjoyment Rules, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

On January 1, 2009 a minor change in the Czech Republic VAT became effective. A use and enjoyment standard was added to modify the sourcing of certain service transactions. Traditional proxy-based rules, derived from Articles 43 and 56(1) of the Recast VAT Directive (RVD), are set aside by this modification when the customer receiving the services has a permanent establishment (PE) in the Czech Republic. The modification is authorized by RVD 58.

This change is a limited adoption of RVD 58(b), and functions like a full force of attraction principle in direct taxation. If caught by these rules, transactions that …

Judicial Adherence To A Minimum Core Approach To Socio-Economic Rights – A Comparative Perspective, Joie Chowdhury

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

Today’s world is witness to extraordinary inequality and the most desperate poverty. Millions of people across the world have no access to adequate food or water, basic health care or minimum levels of education. There are many avenues through which to approach the issue of improving socio-economic conditions. Courts, especially recently, have in certain countries, been seeking to ameliorate these conditions, to some extent, through the means of socio-economic rights adjudication.

For courts to effectively empower people to realize their socio-economic rights, attention to implementation of judgments is essential. A strong normative base for such judgments is just as crucial, …

An Introduction To Social Choice, Maxwell L. Stearns

Faculty Scholarship

Social choice studies the differing implications of the concept of rationality (or transitivity) for individuals versus groups under specified conditions and the significance of these differences in various institutional decision making contexts. This introductory chapter on social choice for the Elgar Handbook on Public Choice (Elgar Publishing Company, Dan Farber and Anne O’Connell, editors), introduces the basic framework of social choice, considers the implications of social choice for various legal and policy contexts, and provides a framework for evaluating a range of normative proposals grounded in social choice for reforming lawmaking institutions. After a brief introduction, part II introduces the …

The Regulatory Response To Madoff, Anita Krug

All Faculty Scholarship

This white paper evaluates investor protection mechanisms in the securities regulatory regime at the time the Madoff fraud was exposed. It considers whether the post-Madoff call for additional regulation of hedge funds and/or their managers - and/or their respective activities - was warranted.

Quebec's Module D'Enregistrement Des Ventes (Mev): Fighting The Zapper, Phantomware And Tax Fraud With Technology, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

On January 28, 2008 the Quebec Minister of Revenue, Jean-Marc Fournier, announced that by late 2009 the MRQ will begin testing a device, the module d'enregistrement des ventes (MEV) that is projected to substantially reduce tax fraud in the restaurant sector. By 2010 or 2011 MEVs will be mandatory in all Quebec restaurants, where they will assure accuracy and retention of business records within electronic cash registers (ECRs).

This paper moves beyond a discussion of the variety of sales suppression programs in use - zappers and phantom-ware. The concern here is on enforcement efforts, particularly the MEV. The intent is …

The Hedge Fund Transparency Act Of 2009, Anita Krug

All Faculty Scholarship

This white paper provides a review and critique of a bill introduced by Senators Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) in the Senate in early 2009 that, if enacted, would have imposed certain registration and disclosure requirements on hedge funds and certain other private funds.

Trapped In A Metaphor: The Limited Implications Of Federalism For Corporate Governance, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

Trapped in a metaphor articulated at the founding of modern corporate law, the study of corporate governance has - for some thirty years - been asking the wrong questions. Rather than a singular race among states, whether to the bottom or the top, the synthesis of William Cary and Ralph Winter’s famous exchange is better understood as two competitions, each serving distinct normative ends. Managerial competition advances the project that has motivated corporate law since Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means - effective regulation of the separation of ownership and control. State competition, by contrast, does not promote a race to …

California Biometrics: A Second Proposal For California's Commission On The 21st Century Economy, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

This proposal takes a long view to revenue reform. It seeks to fundamentally align the sales tax with the digital foundation of the 21st Century economy.

The core policy question is whether California is willing to change the way it defines sales tax exemptions; is it willing to move from product-centric to person-centric exemptions. Certified tax determination systems can be relied upon. A key element in this proposal is the encryption of exemption certificates in IDs (smart cards with biometric identifiers that will allow the poor or handicapped to make certain purchases tax free).

This proposal suggests that (for example) …

Transfer Pricing In Vat/Gst Vs. Direct Taxation: A Paper On The Topic Of Relations Between Associated Companies, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

This paper considers transfer pricing in VAT/GST and direct taxes, one of a range of tax relationships that flow between associated companies. The topic necessarily proposes an inquiry into vertical harmonization of transfer pricing norms alongside an assessment of present efforts to horizontally harmonize transaction values.

Stated differently, the vertical inquiry is: should the same transaction between the same associated enterprises be valued in the same manner by a single country in VAT/GST and direct taxes? The horizontal effort is: should two jurisdictions treat transactions between associated enterprises within their respective jurisdictions in the same manner in VAT/GST and direct …

Review Of Russ Shafer-Landau (Ed.), Oxford Studies In Metaethics, Vol 3, Eric Wiland

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

California Zappers: A Proposal For The Commission For The 21st Century Economy, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

California has not uncovered a single instance of technology-assisted cash skimming - there are no zappers, and no phantomware in California. Is this because Californians are not skimming cash sales with technology, or is this because the California technology works so well that the fraud cannot be detected?

The record in foreign jurisdictions is reasonable clear. Automated sales suppression technology is widely used to skim cash sales, denying the state revenues from consumption taxes that have been paid by the consumer, reducing taxable business profits, and funding a cash hoard out of which unreported employee wages are paid. Government studies …

Competition Law And The Institutional Embeddedness Of Economics, David J. Gerber

All Faculty Scholarship

Transnational debates about the role of economics in competition law have paid relatively little systematic attention to the embeddedness of economics in institutions. They typically proceed as if embeddedness were not an issue. The assumption often appears to be that economics looks, acts and functions in the same way wherever it is applied. This assumption is frequently the basis for claims supporting increased use of economics in competition law systems around the world.

This article examines that assumption and argues that the institutional embeddedness of economics needs to be taken into account when we wish to evaluate and analyze the …

Legal Limbo: Where Should The Guantanamo Uighurs Be Released?, William L. Tucker

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

The September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States shocked the world's conscience and changed the American public's feeling of vulnerability.