Law and Economics Commons^™

Economics Of Public Use, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

The fifth amendment to the United States Constitution, as well as most state constitutions, provides that private property shall not be taken "for public use" unless just compensation is paid. American courts have long construed this to mean that some showing of "publicness" is a condition precedent to a legitimate exercise of the power of eminent domain. Thus, when a proposed condemnation of property lacks the appropriate public quality, the taking is deemed to be unconstitutional and can be enjoined. In practice, however, most observers today think the public use limitation is a dead letter. Three recent decisions, upholding takings …

Rethinking The Theory Of Legal Rights, Jules S. Coleman, Jody S. Kraus

Faculty Scholarship

In the economic approach to law, legal rights are designed, in part, to overcome the conditions under which markets fail. In correcting for market failure, economic analysis endorses two rules for assigning legal rights. The first specifies the allocation of rights under conditions of rational cooperation, full information and zero transaction costs. Provided that exchange is available and that obstacles to exercising it are insignificant, rational cooperators will negotiate around inefficiencies. Under these conditions, legal rights are not assigned in order to establish optimal levels of resource deployment directly; rather, they establish well-defined entitlements or negotiation points which create a …

Fishing And Selling, Victor P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Consumers are a lot like fish, out there waiting to be hooked. Like most images, this one is a caricature of reality. The choice and search effort of consumers is suppressed in order to explore the implications of selling activity by manufacturers and retailers. In particular, the fishing analogy suggests that there is a tendency toward excessive selling activity if sellers do not take into account the effects of their activity on the costs of their rivals. However, sellers, like fishermen, have an incentive to arrange their affairs to mitigate the dissipation of rents. This argument is developed in Section …

Actual Causation Vs. Probabilistic Linkage: The Bane Of Economic Analysis, Richard W. Wright

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Negligence, Causation And Information, Stephen G. Marks

Faculty Scholarship

This note suggests a model to unify, in a simple information-based framework, the notion of negligence and the various notions of causation. In effect, the model demonstrates that negligence, probabilistic cause and cause-in-fact represent an identical concept applied to different information sets. This note uses the unified framework to develop a simple algorithm for the practical application of the principles of causation in the law of negligence.

Innovative Transfer And Exchange Plans, Glenn E. Porzak

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

36 pages (includes maps).

Contains footnotes (page 32).

Voluntary Approaches To Basinwide Water Management, Neil S. Grigg

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

13 pages (includes illustration).

Contains references (page 11).

Interstate Transfers Of Water: Many A Slip ‘Twixt The Cup And The Lip, Howard Holme

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

44 pages (includes maps and tables).

Contains 6 pages of footnotes.

Engineering And Hydrologic Issues In Changing Water Uses, Leonard Rice

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

26 pages (includes maps, charts and illustrations).

Contains references (page 18).

A Market-Based Approach To Water Rights: Evaluating Colorado’S System, Stephen F. Williams

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

33 pages.

Contains footnotes.

Agenda: Colorado Water Issues And Options: The 90'S And Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use Of Colorado's Water Resources, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center, Colorado Water Resources Research Institute. Cooperative Extension Service

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

Presented by Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado School of Law and Cooperative Extension Service, Colorado Water Resources Research Institute, Colorado State University.

Conference organizers and/or speakers included University of Colorado School of Law professors Lawrence J. MacDonnell, David H. Getches and Stephen F. Williams.

The conference theme is "Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources." The purpose of the conference is to provide a forum for public discussion of Colorado's system of water law and administration and to make recommendations for future action.

Administering Colorado’S Water: A Critique Of The Present Approach, Clyde O. Martz, Bennett W. Raley

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

41 pages.

Contains footnotes.

Wasted Water: The Problems And Promise Of Improving Efficiency Under Western Water Law, Steven J. Shupe

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

61 pages.

Includes footnotes (pages 49-56).

Factors Affecting Colorado’S Water Future: Summary Of Results Of Survey Conducted April 1985, Lawrence J. Macdonnell

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

7 pages.

Nontributary Ground Water: A Continuing Dilemma, William A. Paddock

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

47 pages.

Contains 2 pages of footnotes.

Meeting Colorado’S Water Requirements: An Overview Of The Issues, David H. Getches

Colorado Water Issues and Options: The 90's and Beyond: Toward Maximum Beneficial Use of Colorado's Water Resources (October 8)

43 pages (includes tables and map).

Includes 3 pages of footnotes.

Vertical Restraints, George A. Hay

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Are Individuals Bayesian Decision Makers?, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

There has been increasing interest in whether normative models of individual choice under uncertainty accord with actual behavior. These concerns have been much greater than in other economic contexts because of the particularly severe demands such decisions place on the rationality of the decision maker. The limitations of these decisions have widespread consequences, as they provide the rationale for many governmental efforts to regulate the risks people face. Here I explore the issues raised by a Bayesian decision framework, focusing particularly on my analyses of worker and consumer behavior.

Some Considerations Which May Lead Lawmakers To Modify A Policy When Adopting It As Law, Robert S. Summers

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Vertical Restraints After Monsanto, George A. Hay

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The decision in Monsanto Co. v. Spray-Rite Service Corp. represents the Supreme Court's latest effort to articulate the standards governing vertical restraints of trade under the United States anti-trust law. It is unlikely that this will be the last time the Court addresses this topic. Notwithstanding the many Supreme Court decisions in this area, several issues remain unresolved. Indeed, Monsanto may have created (or resurrected) as many new questions as it answered, a phenomenon characteristic of most prior opinions in this area.

At least part of the reason for this unsettled state is that, from the outset, the Supreme Court …

Anti-Trust And Economic Theory: Some Observations From The Us Experience, George A. Hay

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Recent developments in US anti-trust can be characterised as reflecting the uneasy interaction of two quite separate phenomena: first, the increased emphasis on economic analysis as the overriding organising principle of anti-trust policy and on economic efficiency as the primary (perhaps only) relevant goal for anti-trust; second, the long-standing reluctance of the federal judiciary to involve itself in any substantive economic analysis, and the preference, instead, for simple rules of thumb or ‘pigeon holes’ to sort out lawful from unlawful conduct. The result has been that while economics has played a major role, it has not influenced American anti-trust as …

The Administration's Legislation: The National Cooperative Research Act Of 1984, The National Productivity And Innovation Act Of 1983, 18 J. Marshall L. Rev. 607 (1985), Kelly L. Morron

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Artificiality Of Economic Models As A Guide For Legal Evolution, Nancy K. Kubasek

Cleveland State Law Review

This Comment focuses on the frequent conflict between orthodox economic theory and the direction taken by legislation or the common law. Several specific areas of legal decision making are discussed as illustrations of this conflict with an emphasis on the artificiality of the economic thinking that caused the disagreement. The purpose of this analysis is to caution those who would use economic models as their primary beacon for prescribing future legal developments. The first section of this Comment looks at three specific controversial areas in which orthodox economic arguments are frequently considered: wage and price controls, comparable worth claims, and …

Empirical Research And The Shareholder Derivative Suit: Toward A Better-Informed Debate, Bryant G. Garth, Ilene H. Nagel, Sheldon J. Plager

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Artificiality Of Economic Models As A Guide For Legal Evolution, Nancy K. Kubasek

Cleveland State Law Review

This Comment focuses on the frequent conflict between orthodox economic theory and the direction taken by legislation or the common law. Several specific areas of legal decision making are discussed as illustrations of this conflict with an emphasis on the artificiality of the economic thinking that caused the disagreement. The purpose of this analysis is to caution those who would use economic models as their primary beacon for prescribing future legal developments. The first section of this Comment looks at three specific controversial areas in which orthodox economic arguments are frequently considered: wage and price controls, comparable worth claims, and …

Authority, Autonomy, And Choice: The Role Of Consent In The Moral And Political Visions Of Franz Kafka And Richard Posner, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In "The Ethical and Political Basis of Wealth Maximization" and two related articles, Professor (now Judge) Richard Posner argues that widely shared pro-autonomy moral values are furthered by wealth-maximizing market transfers, judicial decisions, and legal institutions advocated by members of the "law and economics" school of legal theory. Such transactions, decisions, and institutions are morally attractive, Posner argues, because they support autonomy; wealth-maximizing transfers are those to which all affected parties have given their consent. This Article argues that Posner's attempt to defend wealth-maximization on principles of consent rests on a simplistic and false psychological theory of human motivation. Posner's …

Cablespeech For Whom?, Mark S. Nadel

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Un-Easy Case For Technological Optimism, James E. Krier, Clayton P. Gillette

Articles

"Technological optimism" is a term of art, an article of faith, and a theory of politics. It is a view that pervades modem attitudes, yet gets little explicit attention. For a brief period the situation was otherwise. In the early 1970s, the optimistic outlook figured prominently in an important debate about nothing less than the future of the world. Technological optimism won. The outcome was unsurprising, given the nature of the argument. On one side of the debate was a group of self-proclaimed Malthusians who foresaw an impending period of stark scarcity unless relatively drastic remedial steps were quickly taken; …

Efficient Markets, Costly Information, And Securities Research, Jeffrey N. Gordon, Lewis A. Kornhauser

Faculty Scholarship

Courts, administrative policy makers and legal scholars have widely embraced the theory that well-developed markets are efficient. In this Article, Professors Gordon and Kornhauser cast doubt on the wisdom of reliance on the efficient market hypothesis as applied to various areas of corporate law. Their charge is that legal decision makers and scholars have misunderstood the assumptions and limitations of the theory and have neglected recent critical economics scholarship. Professors Gordon and Kornhauser begin by detailing the assertions of the hypothesis in relation to the workings of securities markets, focusing on various asset pricing models used to test the hypothesis …

Charting The Future Course For Corporate Management Of Health Risks, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

Corporations engage in technological activities of benefit to society, but thereby also create new health risks for workers, consumers, and communities. Government regulatory agencies deal with this chronic problem by conducting risk analyses and imposing various duties on private firms. Despite agency efforts and corporate compliance, health risks continue to arise and take their toll. To what extent will private firms voluntarily assume greater responsibility for preventing these health risks? This question is of increasing social importance, because the limitations of regulatory efforts are now obvious, whereas health risks are now being identified at what appears to be an increasing …