Law and Economics Commons^™

Saving Homes? Bankruptcies And Loan Modifications In The Foreclosure Crisis, Alan M. White, Carolina Reid

Florida Law Review

Do homeowner bankruptcy filings work to delay or prevent home foreclosures, and how do they compare to voluntary loan modifications specifically targeted to mortgage relief? The 2007–2012 financial crisis provides a unique opportunity to assess whether bankruptcy can help homeowners avoid the negative consequences of over-indebtedness and mortgage default. This empirical study analyzes a large, loan-level mortgage dataset to determine which variables are associated with delinquency and bankruptcy filing, and in turn, whether filing bankruptcy or receiving a loan modification measurably influences subsequent loan outcomes (e.g., foreclosure sale, prepayment, or default cure). Overall, we find that bankruptcy filings delay foreclosures …

Newsroom: Ahern "07 Leads Ced Clinic, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Price Gouging: A Gray Area, Mathis Mateus

Common Reading Essay Contest Winners

Second Place

Essay Prompt: In Justice, Sandel discusses a number of contemporary political issues (e.g. price gouging during the 2004 Hurricane, the 2008-9 financial meltdown, the volunteer army, pregnancy surrogates, executive pay, slavery reparations, immigration, and gay marriage). Take a position on one of the issues discussed in the book and make the best case that you can for why this position is the most just. You may include evidence from the book, your prior studies, your own experience, and/or outside research. (Outside research is not required.)

Finding Aid To The Collection Of Richard Cutts Shannon Materials., Richard Cutts Shannon, Colby College Special Collections

Finding Aids

The Richard Cutts Shannon collection contains diaries, correspondence, printed materials, photographs, artifacts, and clippings by and about Richard Cutts Shannon, Colby Class of 1862. Of note are many diaries Shannon kept throughout his life between 1862-1920, including his time as an aide-de-camp in the Civil War, a prisoner in Libby Prison, his voyage to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, his service as Secretary of the U.S. Legation in Brazil, as a U.S. Congressman, and an account of his tour around the world. This collection also contains photographs, artifacts (Shannon's riding gloves and saddlebag from the Civil War era), Shannon's accounts of …

The Self, The Stasi, The Nsa: Privacy, Knowledge, And Complicity In The Surveillance State, Richard Warner, Robert H. Sloan

All Faculty Scholarship

We focus on privacy in public. The notion dates back over a century, at least to the work of the German sociologist, Georg Simmel. Simmel observed that people voluntarily limit their knowledge of each other as they interact in a wide variety of social and commercial roles, thereby making certain information private relative to the interaction even if it is otherwise publicly available. Current governmental surveillance in the US (and elsewhere) reduces privacy in public. But to what extent?

The question matters because adequate self-realization requires adequate privacy in public. That in turn depends on informational norms, social norms that …

Marital Contracting In A Post-Windsor World, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Investments To Make Threats Credible, Rent-Seeking, And Duress, Mark Seidenfeld, Murat C. Mungan

Scholarly Publications

Existing literature on the contract law doctrine of duress identifies a number of tests to determine conditions under which a contract can be voided. No article provides a specific and formal economic analysis on the link between rent-seeking and the conditions under which allowing a defense of duress is wealth enhancing. This article shows that commitments made as a result of ex ante investments by threatening parties made solely for the purpose of transferring, rather than creating wealth, ought to be voidable. We discuss cases in which a test based on rent-seeking enhances efficiency where previously proposed tests do not.

Law And Economic Exploitation In An Anti-Classification Age, Hila Keren

Florida State University Law Review

Does our legal system permit the economic exploitation of extreme vulnerability? Focusing on predatory housing loans—a thriving business at the dawn of the twenty-first century—this Article argues that the answer in most cases is yes. Under an individualistic neoliberal paradigm, borrowers are held liable for their contracts, even if they were targeted with predatory practices. Further, borrowers’ attempts to resort to antidiscrimination law, and frame their exploitation as “reverse redlining,” have offered no real answer. An important yet undertheorized explanation for this problem is the impact of the Supreme Court’s anti-classification jurisprudence on lower courts. In an anti-classification age, even …

Private Ordering Under Threat Of Regulation, Jake Linford

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Adjudicating Corporate Auctions, Jay B. Kesten

Scholarly Publications

In light of recent developments in auction theory, this Article re-examines Delaware corporate law governing directors' actions when structuring the sale of a corporation. A foundational doctrine of Delaware law is that when the board of directors resolves to sell a corporation, it must obtain the highest price reasonably available. Auction theory posits that, in certain circumstances germane to corporate takeovers, revenues can be maximized through the use of ex ante precommitments to the rules of the auction. Delaware law, however, does not fully endorse directors' ability to make such precommitments, primarily out of the concern that the board will …

Occupy Copyright: A Law & Economic Analysis Of U.S. Author Termination Rights, Kate Darling

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Death Penalty Drugs And The International Moral Marketplace, James Gibson, Corinna Barrett Lain

Law Faculty Publications

Across the country, executions have become increasingly problematic as states have found it more and more difficult to procure the drugs they need for lethal injection.At first blush, the drug shortage appears to be the result of pharmaceutical industry norms; companies that make drugs for healing (mostly in Europe) have refused to be merchants of death. But closer inspection reveals that European governments are the true change agents here. For decades, those governments have tried-and failed-to promote abolition of the death penalty through traditional instruments of international law. Turns out that the best way to export their abolitionist norms was …

International Trade's Zero-Sum Game: How Zeroing In Accordance With The Tariff Act Of 1930 Harms The American Economy And Why It Must Go, Courtney Cox

Loyola Consumer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mediator Misunderstanding Of Bargaining Basics: Heading In An Ugly Direction, Joseph B. Stulberg

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

A mediator facilitates bargaining conduct among negotiating parties. She conducts the session in a way that is designed to improve everyone's understanding of the situation, promote thoughtful problem solving, and develop settlement terms acceptable to all. When performing her tasks, a mediator must prefer or promote a particular bargaining approach by and among the parties. The only question is: which bargaining theory and approach should she privilege?

Revisited 2015: Protection Of U.S. Trade Secret Assets: Critical Amendments To The Economic Espionage Act Of 1996, 14 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 476 (2015), R. Mark Halligan

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

In order to protect the national and economic interests of the United States, the Economic Espionage Act was enacted in 1996. Although intended to prevent and deter trade secret theft, the EEA is limited to criminal prosecutions. Critical amendments to the EEA are required to create a civil cause of action in the new information-based economy and the international marketplace. In 2008, the author recommended two critical amendments to the Economic Espionage Act that have been vetted and have been the subject of legislative proposals for the past 7 years. The author now revisits developments since 2008 and underscores the …

Information & Equilibrium In Insurance Markets With Big Data, Peter Siegelman

Faculty Articles and Papers

Asymmetric information makes the behavior of insurance markets very difficult to predict. But this Article argues that the increasing use of Big Data by insurers will not result in forecasts of loss that are so accurate that they eliminate uncertainty, and with it, the possibility of insurance. Big Data techniques might lead to a 'flip" in informational asymmetry, resulting in a situation in which insurers know more about their customers than the latter know about themselves. But the effects of such a development could actually be benign. Finally, the Article considers the potential for Big (or at least, More) Data …

A Conceptual Framework For The Regulation Of Cryptocurrencies, Omri Y. Marian

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Essay proposes a conceptual framework for the regulation of transactions involving cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies offer tremendous opportunities for innovation and development but are also uniquely suited to facilitate illicit behavior. The regulatory framework suggested herein is intended to support (or at least not impair) cryptocurrencies’ innovative potential. At the same time, it aims to disrupt cryptocurrencies’ criminal utility. To achieve these purposes, this Essay proposes a regulatory framework that imposes costs on the characteristics of cryptocurrencies that make them especially useful for criminal behavior (in particular, anonymity) but does not impose costs on characteristics that are at the core of …

In The Name Of The Child: Race, Gender, And Economics In Adoptive Couple V. Baby Girl, Bethany Berger

Faculty Articles and Papers

On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court decided Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, holding that the Indian Child Welfare Act did not permit the Cherokee father in that case to object to termination of his parental rights. The case is ostensibly about a dispute between prospective adoptive parents and a biological father. This Article demonstrates that it is about a lot more than that. It is a microcosm of anxieties about Indianness, race, and the changing nature of parenthood. While made in the name of the child, moreover, the decision supports practices and policies that do not forward and may …

Legal Institutionalism: Capitalism And The Constitutive Role Of Law, Simon Deakin, David Gindis, Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Kainan Huang, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Scholarship

Social scientists have paid insufficient attention to the role of law in constituting the economic institutions of capitalism. Part of this neglect emanates from inadequate conceptions of the nature of law itself. Spontaneous conceptions of law and property rights that downplay the role of the state are criticized here, because they typically assume relatively small numbers of agents and underplay the complexity and uncertainty in developed capitalist systems. In developed capitalist economies, law is sustained through interaction between private agents, courts and the legislative apparatus. Law is also a key institution for overcoming contracting uncertainties. It is furthermore a part …

Childcare Market Failure, Meredith Johnson Harbach

Law Faculty Publications

In the UnitedStates,family law norms and childcare policy have long reflected the view that childcare is a private,family matter.Butchildcare hascrossedtheprivate-publicdivide.In the absence of parents at home providing care, a substantial childcare market has emerged. And that market is failing. Our law, policy, and legal scholarship have yet to recognize and account for this new reality. This Article confronts the problem on its own terms, using economic analysis to diagnose our childcarecrisis as a marketfailure,and makes the casefor more active and explicit government intervention in the childcare market. Economic theory not only helps us understand why the market is failing, but …