Law and Economics Commons^™

Defining The Prisoners' Dilemma, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Formally, a prisoner's dilemma is defined as follows: There are two participants symmetrically situated. For each player, her payoff if she refuses to cooperate with the other player is higher than her payoff would be if she cooperated, and this is true whether the other chooses to cooperate, or chooses to defect. If both cooperate, her payoff will be higher than if both defect.

Airlines, Airports And Antitrust: A Proposed Strategy For Enhanced Competition, Robert M. Hardaway, Paul Stephen Dempsey

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Most of this country's major airports are monopolies or duopolies at which one or two dominant carriers control a high percentage of terminal facilities. Airlines have used this market power to raise fares on flights originating and terminating at such airports. Although this power has been gained in part through the process of buy-outs and mergers in the airline industry itself, it has also been gained through actions taken in concert with airport authorities, such as when agreements are entered into that effectively limit the availability of airport facilities to new entrants and other competitors. Airlines, by virtue of rights …

Impractibility, Mutual Mistake And Related Contractual Bases For Equitably Adjusting The External Debt Of Sub-Saharan Africa, Jon H. Sylvester

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

At the end of 1988, the combined external indebtedness of the third world' (referred to below as less developed countries or "LDCs") was estimated at nearly $1.3 trillion.2 In the same year, the United Nations agency United Nations International Childrens' Emergency Fund ("UNICEF") attributed the deaths of 650,000 children in LDCs to re-duction in basic living standards caused by diversion of resources to servicing external debt.3 Some experts say prospects for solving this huge and growing problem are actually growing worse due to "debt fatigue."

Government Liability For Economic Losses: The Case Of Regulatory Failure, David S. Cohen

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Compensation claims against provincial and federal governments are largely a product of the second half of the 20th century. The initial surge of cases after the enactment of the federal Crown Liability Act in 1953--mirrored also in developments at the provincial level-- were typically "private" tort claims. Indeed a significant percentage of claims against the federal government continue to be nothing more than automobile accident, occupier liability claims and lawsuits arising out of similar relatively minor bureaucratic error. Recently, however, as a result of both the imagination of litigators and the growth of the regulatory state, claims against governments have …

Judicial Choice And Disparities Between Measures Of Economic Values, David S. Cohen

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

An important idea, which characterizes law in society, is a reluctance to move from the status quo. In general, one can argue that legal institutions and legal doctrine are not engaged in the redistribution of wealth from one party to another. This paper explores a possible explanation for that principle. The authors' research suggests that, across a wide range of entitlements and in a variety of contexts, individuals value losses more than foregone gains. The paper argues, as a matter of efficiency, that law and social policy might have developed in a manner consistent with this valuation disparity. Furthermore, this …

A Bargaining Analysis Of American Labor Law And The Search For Bargaining Equity And Industrial Peace, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

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 …

Work Product Rejected: A Reply To Professor Allen, Elizabeth G. Thornburg

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article responds to Professor Ronald Allen's Work Product Revisited: A Comment on Rethinking Work Product.

Book Review, Hugh H. Gibbons

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Reviews of the following books: K. S. SHRADER-FRECHETTE, Risk AND RATIONALITY (U. California Press 1991) [312 pp.] Index of Names, Index of Subjects, Notes. CIP 91-3294; ISBN 0-520-07287-1 (Cloth $39.95); ISBN 0-520-07289-8 (Pbk. $15.95). [2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94720.] W. KIP VisCusi, REFORMING PRODUCTS LIABILITY (Harvard U. Press 1991). [270 pp.] Appendices, bibliography, index, notes. CIP 90-23161, ISBN 0-674-75323-2 (Cloth $39.95). [79 Garden Street Cambridge, MA 02138.]

Enterprise And American Law 1836-1937. By Herbert Hovenkamp. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press, 1991., Barry Cushman

Journal Articles

Book review of Enterprise and American Law 1836-1937 by Herbert Hovenkamp. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991

A Study After Cardozo: De Cicco V. Schweizer, Noncooperative Games, And Neural Computing, Robert Birmingham

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Benign Restraint: The Sec's Regulation Of Execution Systems, David M. Schizer

Faculty Scholarship

To the handful of traders who founded the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in 1792 – and perhaps even to the securities traders of the 1960's – today's securities markets would be virtually unrecognizable. New communications and data processing technologies, the globalization of investment portfolios, and a surge in trading volume have created new needs and possibilities. As a result, revolutionary advances have occurred in the design and performance of execution systems: the technologies (computers, telephones, modems) and formats (auction-based stock exchanges, dealer-based "over-the-counter" markets, computerized single price auctions) that traders use to conduct trades. These advances enable trades on …

Efficiency And Individualism, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

Law and economics-the systematic application of neoclassical price theory to legal problems has dominated the legal academy in recent years. One recent study found that law and economics "for several decades appears to have pervaded about one quarter of scholarship in elite law reviews," and that figure may seriously

understate the theory's influence. A number of justifiably well regarded scholarly journals devote themselves almost exclusively to economic analysis of law, and the subject is now a regular part of law school curricula.' Perhaps most importantly, law and economics is a pervasive and influential presence in informal academic discussions. Even legal …

Market Power In Antitrust, George A. Hay

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The concept of market power is at the core of antitrust. Philosophically, antitrust policy is aimed primarily at preventing firms from achieving, retaining, or abusing market power. Operationally, assessing whether a firm or firms have market power or any reasonable prospect for achieving it is often the first (and sometimes, the only) step in performing an antitrust analysis.

Few would dispute that market power should play a prominent role in antitrust analysis. Nevertheless, important questions remain. Some of these questions quite naturally focus on the precise degree of importance given to market power. Is it an essential ingredient in antitrust …

Social-Republican Property, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

Economic democracy is the idea that the norms of equality and participation that classical liberalism confines to a narrowly defined sphere of government should apply to the sphere of economic life. Economic democracy thus entails a challenge to the classical liberal notion of property. In classical liberalism, property defines a realm of private enjoyment. No particular property right is a prerogative of, or a prerequisite to, citizenship, and the exercise of property rights by those who have them is not assessed in political terms.

One alternative to classical liberalism responsive to the ideal of economic democracy is classical socialism. Classical …

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

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 …

Long-Term Debt, The Term Structure Of Interest And The Case For Accrual Taxation, Theodore S. Sims

Faculty Scholarship

During the past 25 years, the Internal Revenue Code has become increasingly sophisticated in its treatment of long-term debt. That transformation occurred as part of a wider set of legislative changes, changes that have made the Code generally more sensitive to the consequences of compound interest and discounted (or present) values. Much of this was dictated by necessity. By ignoring the effects of compound interest, the Code often measured income in a way that was economically unsound, and thereby allowed taxpayers to take advantage of the statutory shortcomings, often with dramatic, unanticipated results.

On The Allocation Of Burdens Of Proof In Corporate Law: An Essay On Fairness And Fuzzy Sets, Charles M. Yablon

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Improving The Procedure For Resolving Hearsay Issues, Richard D. Friedman

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Procedural Options For Resolving Hearsay Issues, Roger C. Park

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Qualified Plans And Identifying Tax Expenditures: A Rejoinder To Professor Stein, Edward A. Zelinsky

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Private Attorney General Meets Public Contract Law: Procurement Oversight By Protest, Robert C. Marshall, Michael J. Meurer, Jean-Francois Richard

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, protests are analyzed, from both an economic and legal perspective, as a decentralized mechanism for oversight of the competitive procurement process. Attention focuses on the protest process at the General Services Administration Board of Contract Appeals (hereinafter "the Board" or "GSBCA"). It is argued that protests are an effective means of deterring and correcting agency problems among procurement personnel and, consequently, accomplishing the procurement objectives of the government. Drawbacks of the protest process are identified, explanations are offered for the existence of these negative side effects, and solutions are proposed. In addition, protests are compared to centralized …

Glasnost And Perestroika At West Virginia University: The College Of Law's Soviet Exchange Program, Donald G. Gifford

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mindlessness And The Law, Paul J. Heald, James E. Heald

Scholarly Works

No less an authority than Milton Friedman has argued that improving the realism of assumptions in economic theory, although hardly essential to establishing the absolute validity of the theory (purely an empirical question), may offer several benefits. First, a “restructuring” (to use Posner's term) of an assumption may help explain divergences between predicted and observed results. Second, an explanation of why a seemingly unrealistic assumption does not destroy the predictive value of a theory may strengthen the theory by connecting it to “a more general theory that applies to a wider variety of phenomena . . . and has failed …

Building A Community Base For Housing Development In The 1990s: A Modest Proposal For Buffalo, New York, George M. Hezel

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Peter R. Pitegoff

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Peter Pitegoff

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Indian Economic Development: An Evolving Concept Of Sovereignty, John C. Mohawk

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Peter Pitegoff

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.