Political Economy Commons^™

Curbing Corporate Inversions: A Study Of National And International Efforts To Establish Corporate Tax Equity, Scott Novak

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In recent years, the number of U.S. companies trying to merge with a foreign company and thereby reincorporate themselves in countries with a lower corporate tax rate – a practice known as corporate inversion – has skyrocketed. The public outcry in 2014 against corporate inversions led the U.S. Treasury to release a series of new anti-inversion regulations, and more policy changes are in the process of being debated. At the same time as this national discussion on the harmful effects corporate inversions have on the U.S. tax base is progressing, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is in …

Conference Presentation: The Power Of Words In Tension: Enterprise/Strategy As A Dilemma In Neoliberalism’S Persistence., Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

We address how enterprise is related to, another important discourse, strategy. From a discourse analysis of the talk of small firm owner-managers, emerges a view of strategy and enterprise as a single, integrated entity, bound together by some commonalities but more importantly by paired opposites reminiscent of ideological dilemmas (Billig, Condor, Edwards, Gane, Middleton & Radley, 1988). This dilemmatic nature of enterprise/strategy discourse adds to explanations for the persistence of the neoliberal form of enterprise, with the entrepreneur as the heroic saviour of all, based on the entrepreneur as an empty signifier (Jones & Spicer, 2009; Kenny & …

Exploring Economists & Society: Constructing Expert Identity, Joseph Fitzgerald, Brendan O'Rourke

Conference papers

The recent economic crisis has created a heightened interest in economics and greater demand for economics experts. The media has played an important role in meeting this demand as mediated expertise is relied upon to understand the complex relationships within society (Albaek, Christiansen and Togeby 2003; Beck 1992; Boyce 2006; Giddens 1990). Such interactions of experts with media are a key element of the knowledge flows within society (Sturdy et al. 2009) and so have attracted research attention (Ekstrom and Lundell 2011; Hutchby 2006; Montgomery 2008). This paper contributes to this literature by focusing on the under-researched area of the …

Trade, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides a historical overview of analysis of U.S. foreign trade policy during the early decades of the country's history. Examines bilateral U.S. trade relations with France and Great Britain, provides import and export statistics, details on commodities and products imports and exported, trade statistics, and information on the political and economic factors shaping U.S. trade during this period.

New York Stock Exchange, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides a historical overview of the origins and early development of the New York Stock Exchange.

Revenue, U.S. Government, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides a historical overview of U.S. Government revenue receipts and spending during the early years of national history. Presents revenue generation statistics, information on revenue sources, and information on domestic and international political and economic factors affecting government revenue receipts.

Single Point Of Entry And The Bankruptcy Alternative, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

This Essay, which will appear in Across the Great Divide: New Perspectives on the Financial Crisis, a Brookings Institution and Hoover Institution book, begins with a brief overview of concerns raised by the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy about the adequacy of our existing architecture for resolving the financial distress of systemically important financial institutions. The principal takeaway of the first section is that Title II as enacted left most of these issues unanswered. By contrast, the FDIC’s new single point of entry strategy, which is introduced in the second section, can be seen as addressing nearly all of them. The …

Response To Questions In The First White Paper, 'Modernizing The Communications Act', Randolph J. May, Richard A. Epstein, Justin (Gus) Hurwitz, Daniel Lyons, James B. Speeta, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has begun a process to review and update the Communications Act of 1934, last revised in any material way in 1996. As the Committee begins the review process, this paper responds to questions posed by the Committee that all relate, in fundamental ways, to the question: "What should a modern Communications Act look like?"

The Response advocates a "clean slate" approach under which the regulatory silos that characterize the current statute would be eliminated, along with almost all of the ubiquitous 'public interest' delegation of authority found throughout the Communications Act. The replacement regime …

Moving Beyond Boycotts: Strategies For Shared Responsibility In The Collegiate Apparel Industry, Scott Kelley

Mission and Ministry Publications

the factory collapse at Rana Plaza in Bangladesh is a painful reminder that labor issues in the apparel industry are abundant and troubling. Catholic Colleges and Universities (CCUs) are confronted with the reality that many apparel manufacturers can operate in stark contrast to the vision of economic justice found in Catholic social thought (CST). In response, activists on CCU campuses have demanded that CCUs boycott apparel manufacturers that they believe to be in violation of their school’s values. While activism can draw much needed attention to problems in the industry, it can be a problematic response. While CST offers principles …

The Impossible, Highly Desired Islamic Bank, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

The purpose of this Article is to explore, and explain the stubborn persistence of, a central paradox that is endemic to the retail Islamic bank as it operates in the United States. The paradox is that retail Islamic banking in the United States is impossible, and yet it remains highly desired. It is impossible because the principles that are supposed to underlie the practice of Islamic finance deal with the trading of assets and the equitable sharing of risks, profits and losses among bank, depositor and portfolio investment. It is true that much of this can be, and is, circumvented …

Remittances From Puerto Rico: Unsuspected Transnational Locality In Times Of Crisis, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

Articles

This paper looks at immigrant remittances from Puerto Rico as a tool to understand how immigrant communities have faced and engaged the economic crisis. For example, from the data reviewed, it stems that immigrant remittances sent from Puerto Rico do not follow the same patterns as remittances sent from the United States and Europe inasmuch as they seem less affected by the global financial crisis and local unemployment rates. The research conducted also tends to indicate that money transfers from Puerto Rico might allow us to grasp the growing economic transnational relationships that are being maintained by varied immigrant communities …

Wickard For The Internet? Network Neutrality After Verizon V. Fcc, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

The D.C. Circuit’s January 2014 decision in Verizon v. FCC represented a major milestone in the debate over network neutrality that has dominated communications policy for the past decade. This article analyzes the implications of the D.C. Circuit’s ruling, beginning with a critique of the court’s ruling that section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 gave the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the authority to mandate some form of network neutrality. Examination of the statute’s text, application of canons of construction such as ejusdem generis and noscitur a sociis, and a perusal of the statute’s legislative history all raise questions …

Behaviorism In Finance And Securities Law, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, I take stock (as something of an outsider) of the behavioral economics movement, focusing in particular on its interaction with traditional cost-benefit analysis and its implications for agency structure. The usual strategy for such a project—a strategy that has been used by others with behavioral economics—is to marshal the existing evidence and critically assess its significance. My approach in this Essay is somewhat different. Although I describe behavioral economics and summarize the strongest criticisms of its use, the heart of the Essay is inductive, and focuses on a particular context: financial and securities regulation, as recently revamped …

Corporate Governance And Social Welfare In The Common Law World, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

The newest addition to the spate of recent theories of comparative corporate governance is Corporate Governance in the Common-Law World: The Political Foundations of Shareholder Power, an important new book by Christopher Bruner. Focusing on the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia, Bruner argues that the robustness of the country’s social welfare system is the key determinant of the extent to which its corporate governance is shareholder-centered. This explains why corporate governance is so shareholder-oriented in the United Kingdom, which has universal healthcare and generous unemployment benefits, while shareholders’ powers are more attenuated in the United States, with its …

Symbolic Corporate Governance Politics, Marcel Kahan, Edward B. Rock

All Faculty Scholarship

How are we to understand the persistent gap between rhetoric and reality that characterizes so much of corporate governance politics? In this Article, we show that the rhetoric around a variety of high profile corporate governance controversies (including shareholder proposals asking boards to redeem poison pills, proxy access, majority voting in director elections, and shareholder proposals to remove supermajority voting requirements) cannot be justified by the material interests at stake. At the same time, shareholder activists are oddly reluctant to pursue issues that may have a more material impact, such as anti-pill charter provisions or mandatory bylaw amendments. We consider …

Performance Track’S Postmortem: Lessons From The Rise And Fall Of Epa’S “Flagship” Voluntary Program, Cary Coglianese, Jennifer Nash

All Faculty Scholarship

For nearly a decade, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) considered its National Environmental Performance Track to be its “flagship” voluntary program — even a model for transforming the conventional system of environmental regulation. Since Performance Track’s founding during the Clinton Administration, EPA officials repeatedly claimed that the program’s rewards attracted hundreds of the nation’s “top” environmental performers and induced these businesses to make significant environmental gains beyond legal requirements. Although EPA eventually disbanded Performance Track early in the Obama Administration, the program has been subsequently emulated by a variety of state and federal regulatory authorities. To discern lessons …

An Empirical Analysis Of Cost Recovery In Superfund Cases: Implications For Brownfields And Joint And Several Liability, Howard F. Chang, Hilary Sigman

All Faculty Scholarship

Economic theory developed in the prior literature indicates that under the joint and several liability imposed by the federal Superfund statute, the government should recover more of its costs of cleaning up contaminated sites than it would under nonjoint liability, and the amount recovered should increase with the number of defendants and with the independence among defendants in trial outcomes. We test these predictions empirically using data on outcomes in federal Superfund cases. Theory also suggests that this increase in the amount recovered may discourage the sale and redevelopment of potentially contaminated sites (or “brownfields”). We find the increase to …

When Should Bankruptcy Be An Option (For People, Places Or Things)?, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

When many people think about bankruptcy, they have a simple left-to-right spectrum of possibilities in mind. The spectrum starts with personal bankruptcy, moves next to corporations and other businesses, and then to municipalities, states, and finally countries. We assume that bankruptcy makes the most sense for individuals; that it makes a great deal of sense for corporations; that it is plausible but a little more suspect for cities; that it would be quite odd for states; and that bankruptcy is unimaginable for a country.

In this Article, I argue that the left-to-right spectrum is sensible but mistaken. After defining “bankruptcy,” …

Harmonizing Choice-Of-Law Rules For International Insolvency Cases: Virtual Territoriality, Virtual Universalism, And The Problem Of Local Interests, Charles W. Mooney Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper explores the potential content and feasibility of a set of harmonized choice of law rules (HICOL Rules) that would apply in insolvency proceedings. It contemplates a main insolvency proceeding opened in a debtor’s center of main interests (“COMI”) and the existence of (or possibility of opening) one or more non-main (or secondary) proceedings. It also contemplates the possibility that an insolvency representative in a main or non-main proceeding may seek and be granted recognition in another state under the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency (codified as Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code in the U.S.) Under HICOL …

Governing Knowledge Commons -- Introduction & Chapter 1, Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, Katherine J. Strandburg

Book Chapters

“Knowledge commons” describes the institutionalized community governance of the sharing and, in some cases, creation, of information, science, knowledge, data, and other types of intellectual and cultural resources. It is the subject of enormous recent interest and enthusiasm with respect to policymaking about innovation, creative production, and intellectual property. Taking that enthusiasm as its starting point, Governing Knowledge Commons argues that policymaking should be based on evidence and a deeper understanding of what makes commons institutions work. It offers a systematic way to study knowledge commons, borrowing and building on Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize-winning research on natural resource commons. It …