Law and Economics Commons^™

New York Adopts A Vat, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

On August 13, 2010 the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, Office of Tax Policy Analysis, Taxpayer Guidance Division released Amendments Affecting the Application of Sales Tax to Rent Received for Hotel Occupancy by Room Remarketers. The legislative revision it considers (Chapter 57 of the Laws of 2010) was effective September 1, 2010. The changes brought in by this Chapter effectively converted New York’s Hotel Room Occupancy Tax from a single-stage retail sales tax to multi-stage European-style VAT. This paper considers the New York VAT in hotel accommodations in three sections. The first defines a European-style credit-invoice VAT …

Transnational Corporations As Steering Subjects In International Economic Law: Two Competing Visions Of The, Karsten Nowrot

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Transnational corporations (TNCs) not only occupy an important status as economic actors on the international scene, but they are also political actors who are increasingly involved in the progressive development and enforcement of the regulatory structures of the international economic system. Against this background, this article focuses on the current status and potential future development of TNCs as steering subjects in international economic law (IEL). It evaluates the role played by this category of nonstate actors in two of the central public international law fields of IEL, namely the legal order of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the international …

Brown Shoe Versus The Horizontal Merger Guidelines, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

The new Horizontal Merger Guidelines, if treated by courts as a source of law, would reduce the discretion traditionally exercised by courts in defining relevant markets and market power in merger cases. This is an undesirable shift in the balance of power because courts have used the market power inquiry stage of merger analysis as a general checkpoint or weigh station for evaluating factors relevant to the welfare effects of a merger.

Fraud On The Market: An Action Without A Cause, Amanda Rose

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This is a response to William W. Bratton & Michael L. Wachter, The Political Economy of Fraud on the Market, 160 U. PA. L. REV. 69 (2011). Bratton and Wachter argue that fraud-on-the-market class actions (FOTM) should be eliminated and replaced with stepped-up public enforcement efforts targeted at individual wrongdoers (rather than the corporate enterprise, the FOTM target of choice). In this Response, I do not disagree: My own scholarship has similarly emphasized the benefits of shifting away from FOTM to greater reliance on public enforcement mechanisms. Instead, I take the opportunity to elaborate on the deterrence and corporate governance …

The Icsid Effect? Considering Potential Variations In Arbitration Awards, Susan Franck

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The legitimacy of the World Bank's dispute resolution body - The International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) - is a matter of heated debate. Some states have alleged that ICSID is biased, withdrawn from the ICSID Convention, and advocated creating alternative arbitration systems. Using pre-2007 archival data of the population of then- known arbitration awards, this Article quantitatively assesses whether ICSID arbitration awards were substantially different from arbitration awards rendered in other forums. The Article examines variation in the amounts claimed and outcomes reached to evaluate indicators of bias. The results indicated that there was no reliable …

Stabilisation Clauses And The Zambian Windfall Tax, Sangwani Ng'ambi

Zambia Social Science Journal

Over the past decade, Zambia has seen an increase in the flow of foreign direct investment; a large quantity of which went into the copper mining industry. The price of copper increased radically, which prompted the Zambian government to reconsider the preferential tax regime that foreign mining companies enjoyed to ensure that Zambia benefited from this change in circumstances.

The tax regime was originally implemented to encourage the inflow of foreign capital, and to revive an industry that had been crippled by previously low copper prices. The concession agreements between the Government of Zambia and the mining companies contained Stabilisation …

Issue 4: Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Economic Policy After A Lost Decade--From Over-Spending To Innovation, Timothy M. Kaine

University of Richmond Law Review

In this article, I want to focus on one aspect of our economic recovery-namely, how do we grow an economy without relying upon debt-fueled overconsumption? I argue that the magnitude of the 2007-2009 collapse was based significantly on unsustainable spending that had propped up the previous expansion. National policy during the first years of the last decade turned a sizable national surplus into a huge deficit through war spending, tax cuts, and expansion of public programs that were not paid for.The spending patterns of American families followed a similar pattern in which traditional savings rates shrunk precipitously while family debt …

Food Entrepreneurs And Food Safety Regulation, Nina W. Tarr

Journal of Food Law & Policy

It is a bucolic scene: local food growers and producers chatting with consumers who come back each week to participate in a direct and continuing conversation about food with someone they know, and to engage in commerce. This illusion of simplicity masks the ever-growing morass of conflicting, complicated, and expensive regulatory oversight that undermines the local food movement by creating barriers between producers and consumers. Those creating and implementing food policy in the United States are facing a fundamental dilemma of how to reconcile the local food movement with regulations designed to address concerns about food safety.

This article will …

United States Food Law Update: The Fda Food Safety Modernization Act, Obesity And Deceptive Labeling Enforcement, A. Bryan Endres, Nicholas R. Johnson

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The long-awaited enactment of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the most significant amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in several decades, provides the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with significantly enhanced jurisdiction to close some of the gaps in the domestic food safety system. The enhanced FDA authority, however, will have little impact on the shared governance system at the federal level that involves multiple agencies, as the Act does not address the U.S. General Accounting Office's (GAO) repeated calls for consolidation of the fragmented federal food safety system. Rather, the Act perpetuates the division …

The History And Future Of Genetically Modified Crops: Frankenfoods, Superweeds, And The Developing World, Brooke Glass-O'Shea

Journal of Food Law & Policy

In a 1992 letter to the New York Times, a man named Paul Lewis referred to genetically modified (GM) crops as "Frankenfood," and wryly suggested it might be "time to gather the villagers, light some torches and head to the castle." Little did Lewis know that his neologism would become the rallying cry for activists around the world protesting the dangers of genetic engineering. The environmental activist group Greenpeace made great use of the "Frankenfood" epithet in their anti-GM campaigns of the 1990s, though they have since backed away from the word and the hardline stance it represents. But genetically …

The Silver Lining In The Red Giant: China's Residential Mortgage Laws Promote Temperance Among The Surging Middle Class, Clayton D. Laforge

University of Richmond Law Review

This comment examines the rise of China's middle class and proactive governance to protect its economy from a housing bubble during the global downturn. An analysis of recently enacted Chinese labor and corporate laws demonstrates how the government facilitated the rise of the middle class. The comment discusses the ramifications of strict domestic residential mortgage regulations and how China's tempered investment structure secured its domestic housing market. Part II of this comment examines China's investment and consumption patterns compared to domestic growth. Part III discusses how the surging middle class grew to seek investment opportunities in the real estate market …

Orderly Liquidation Authority: A New Insolvency Regime To Address Systemic Risk, Hollace T. Cohen

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mixed Agendas And Government Regulation Of Business: Can We Clean Up The Mess?, Thomas M. Arnold, Jerry L. Stevens

University of Richmond Law Review

The purpose of this article is first to navigate through variousperspectives on government regulation in an effort to develop areasonable and consistent view for regulatory proposals. Parts II and III of this article provide a brief outline of our current regulatory environment and its evolution. Part IV presents arguments for an efficient regulation of business by using market based regulation with a separation of efficiency and equity issues, where feasible. Examples of this regulatory approach appear throughout the article along with suggested reforms.

Law And Neoclassical Economic Development In Theory And Practice: Toward An Institutionalist Critique Of Institutionalism, Chantal Thomas

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Institutionalism propounds a particular set of theoretical assumptions about the role of law in economic growth. In unpacking the development of those assumptions, this Essay adopts a model of intellectual history based on the Kuhnian argument that scientific knowledge evolves through key historical moments that establish theoretical paradigms. These paradigms are replaced only when awareness in the field of anomalies — problems that the existing theoretical paradigm cannot solve — presents a crisis for that paradigm that coincides with the emergence of an "alternate candidate."

The paradigm shift in law and development was enabled by dynamics in both the academy …

The Chapter 13 Alternative: A Legislative Solution To Undersecured Home Mortgages, Hon. Samuel L. Bufford

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Immediate And Lasting Impacts Of The 2008 Economic Collapse--Lehman Brothers, General Motors, And The Secured Credit Markets, Edward J. Estrada

University of Richmond Law Review

This article analyzes the early days of the credit crisis as well as two of the largest casualties of that period-Lehman Brothers and General Motors. In addition, by focusing on the bankruptcy proceedings of these two entities as well as other judicial decisions rendered since the financial crisis began, it examines the role that courts have played in the crisis.

Sks Microfinance And For-Profit Mfis, Unscrupulous Predators Or Political Prey? Examining The Microfinance Credit Crunch In Andhra Pradesh And Assessing The Applicability Of The Un Global Compact "Protect Respect Remedy" Framework, Ashley Feasley

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

Microfinance is the practice of originating small loans and capital infusions in developing countries to poor individual families and small businesses that are outside traditional banks. Today microfinance has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry that has stakeholders in the financial services industry, private international organizations (including non-governmental organizations ("NGOs")) and global politics. The successful initial public offering ("IPO") of SKS Microfinance, ("SKS") a for-profit microfinance institution ("MFI") in August 2010 marked the pinnacle of success for the theory that for-profit MFIs could eradicate poverty while simultaneously making a huge profit through microfinance. The extremely successful SKS IPO bolstered the …

The China Currency Issue: Why The World Trade Organization Would Fail To Provide The United States With An Effective Remedy, Marcus Sohlberg

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

A critical issue in the global trading system that came to the forefront in 2010 concerns exchange rates. Having suffered to various degrees through the worst economic and financial downturn since the Great Depression, many large trading nations have sought to achieve economic recovery through export-led growth. In order to boost international competitiveness, many have engaged in competitive devaluations, i.e. interventions in currency markets to devalue domestic currency. According to Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega this situation has escalated into a “global currency war”.

This paper focuses on China’s practice of maintaining an artificially undervalued currency, and addresses the question …

Rebalancing Oil Contracts In Venezuela, Julián Cárdenas García

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

During the last decade, the Venezuelan government has pursued a reform of the legal regime of hydrocarbons tailored to its interests as an oil producing country. However, the ongoing consequences of the global economic recession which negatively impacted the Venezuelan economy, call into question the suitability of such scheme. Confronting the challenge of attracting foreign investment, the methods of awarding contracts used by the Venezuelan Government have contributed to the approval of a series of incentives which are rebalancing the contractual conditions for new oil ventures. Royalty and tax reductions, access to international arbitration and the protection granted through bilateral …