Traynor (Drennan) Versus Hand (Baird): Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing,
2011
Columbia Law School
Traynor (Drennan) Versus Hand (Baird): Much Ado About (Almost) Nothing, Victor P. Goldberg
Faculty Scholarship
Most Contracts casebooks feature either Baird v. Gimbel or Drennan v. Star Paving to illustrate the limits on revocability of an offer. In this article an analysis of the case law yields three major conclusions. First, as is generally known, in the contractor-subcontractor cases Drennan has prevailed. However, both it and its spawn, Restatement 2d E 87(2), have had almost no impact outside that narrow area. Moreover, almost all the cases involve public construction projects – private projects account for only about ten percent of the cases. This suggests that private parties have managed to resolve the problem contractually. Public …
Systemic Risk After Dodd-Frank: Contingent Capital And The Need For Regulatory Strategies Beyond Oversight,
2011
Columbia Law School
Systemic Risk After Dodd-Frank: Contingent Capital And The Need For Regulatory Strategies Beyond Oversight, John C. Coffee Jr.
Faculty Scholarship
Because the quickest, simplest way for a financial institution to increase its profitability is to increase its leverage, an enduring tension will exist between regulators and systemically significant financial institutions over the issues of risk and leverage. Many have suggested that the 2008 financial crisis erupted because flawed systems of executive compensation induced financial institutions to increase leverage and accept undue risk. But that begs the question why such compensation formulas were adopted. Growing evidence suggests that shareholders favored these formulas to induce managers to accept higher risk and leverage. Shareholder pressure, then, is a factor that could cause the …
Stimulus And Civil Rights,
2011
Columbia Law School
Stimulus And Civil Rights, Olatunde C.A. Johnson
Faculty Scholarship
Federal spending has the capacity to perpetuate racial inequality, not simply through explicit exclusion, but through choices made in the legislative and institutional design of spending programs. Drawing on the lessons of New Deal and postwar social programs, this Essay offers an account of the specificfeatures offederal spending that give it salience in structuring racial arrangements. Federal spending programs, this Essay argues, are relevant in structuring racial inequality due to their massive scale, their creation of new programmatic and spending infrastructures, and the choices made in these programs as to whether to impose explicit inclusionary norms on states and localities. …
Regulatory Dualism As A Development Strategy: Corporate Reform In Brazil, The United States, And The European Union,
2011
Columbia Law School
Regulatory Dualism As A Development Strategy: Corporate Reform In Brazil, The United States, And The European Union, Ronald J. Gilson, Henry Hansmaan, Mariana Pargendler
Faculty Scholarship
Countries pursuing economic development confront afundamental obstacle. Reforms that increase the size of the overall pie are blocked by powerful interests that are threatened by the growth-inducing changes. This problem is conspicuous in efforts to create effective capital markets to support economic development. Controlling owners and managers of established firms successfully oppose corporate governance reforms that would improve investor protection and promote capital market growth. In this Article, we examine the promise of regulatory dualism as a strategy to defuse the tension between future growth and the current distribution of wealth and power. Regulatory dualism seeks to mitigate political opposition …
Can Joe The Plumber Support Redistribution? Law, Social Preferences, And Sustainable Policy Design,
2011
Columbia Law School
Can Joe The Plumber Support Redistribution? Law, Social Preferences, And Sustainable Policy Design, Gillian Lester
Faculty Scholarship
How does one win popular support for laws designed specifically to redistribute economic wealth? One can hardly gainsay that this is a – perhaps the – defining issue for domestic policy in the age of President Obama. Even as the recent financial crisis has exposed the need for a reliable social safety net, attempts to respond through the political and legislative arenas have triggered increasingly hostile responses among conservatives, populists, Massachusetts voters, and incipient tea partiers. The puzzle of how to attract and preserve public support for law reform aimed at redistribution – of both income and risk – is …
Subsidizing The Press,
2011
Columbia Law School
Subsidizing The Press, David M. Schizer
Faculty Scholarship
Through beat reporting and investigative journalism, reporters monitor the foundational institutions of our society. This reporting has value even to those who never buy a newspaper or read a website. For example, subscribers and nonsubscribers alike benefit when government officials respond to a critical news story by eliminating an abusive practice. Yet unfortunately, the professional press is experiencing a severe economic crisis. Layoffs are pervasive, and news organizations across the nation are on the brink of insolvency. As a result, a number of commentators have proposed government subsidies for the press. Yet if the press becomes financially dependent on the …
Who Pays? Who Benefits? Unfairness In American Health Care,
2011
Duke Law School
Who Pays? Who Benefits? Unfairness In American Health Care, Clark C. Havighurst, Barak D. Richman
Faculty Scholarship
American-style health insurance greatly amplifies price-gouging opportunities for health care providers, who inflate prices both to enrich themselves and to subsidize and expand the nation’s health care enterprise. To the extent that lower- and middle-income Americans with private health coverage pay premiums that go to support and expand the system, they are subject to an unfair (regressive) “head tax” levied by unaccountable entities for ostensibly public but also private purposes. Lower-income premium payers also often pay for costly health coverage designed to suit the economic interests and values of professional and other elites rather than their own. They also appear …
Mitigating Financial Risk For Small Business Entrepreneurs,
2011
University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
Mitigating Financial Risk For Small Business Entrepreneurs, Michelle M. Harner
Faculty Scholarship
Financial distress by definition threatens a company’s viability. Entrepreneurial and start-up entities are particularly vulnerable to this threat. Yet, much of the discussion following the recent recession focuses almost exclusively on financial institutions and “too-big-to-fail” entities. This essay re-examines lessons gleaned from the recession in the context of smaller, entrepreneurial entities. Specifically, it analyzes how small business entrepreneurs might invoke principles of enterprise risk management to mitigate the long-term impact of financial distress on their business models. It also considers related refinements to extant small business regulations, including the U.S. bankruptcy laws. The essay’s primary objective is to help policymakers, …
Brand Or Anti-Brand?,
2010
Boston Univeristy School of Law
Brand Or Anti-Brand?, Stacey Dogan
Shorter Faculty Works
How many law review articles begin with a scene from Wayne’s World? For Sonia Katyal, such an opening is par for the course. Since she entered the scene a decade ago, Katyal’s scholarship has celebrated irreverence, and examined the ways in which the law tolerates, enables, and often discourages commentary on dominant culture, icons, and in this case, brands. This essay – written for a symposium on advertising and the law at SUNY Buffalo Law School – continues the Katyal tradition.
The Future Of Digital Communications Research And Policy,
2010
Technology Policy Institute
The Future Of Digital Communications Research And Policy, Scott Wallsten
Federal Communications Law Journal
Symposium: Essays from Time Warner Cable's Research Program on Digital Communications.
Imperfect Alternatives: Networks, Salience, And Institutional Design In Financial Crises,
2010
Texas A&M University School of Law
Imperfect Alternatives: Networks, Salience, And Institutional Design In Financial Crises, Robert B. Ahdieh
Faculty Scholarship
With the benefit of hindsight — and some aspiration to foresight — it is useful to consider the type of regulatory regime that might best address financial crises. What could policymakers have done to prevent the recent crisis? And once the crisis started, what interventions might have alleviated it? These questions have been widely debated, with an eye to both substantive policy and the design of effective regulatory institutions. This Article speaks to the latter project — one of comparative institutional analysis — though with a framework that implicates our substantive policy choices as well. It begins with an account …
The Visible Hand: Coordination Functions Of The Regulatory State,
2010
Texas A&M University School of Law
The Visible Hand: Coordination Functions Of The Regulatory State, Robert B. Ahdieh
Faculty Scholarship
We live in a coordination economy. As one surveys the myriad challenges of modern social and economic life, an ever increasing proportion is defined not by the need to reconcile competing interests, but by the challenge of getting everyone on the same page. Conflict is not absent in these settings. It is not, however, the determinative factor in shaping our behaviors and resulting interactions. That essential ingredient, instead, is coordination.
Such coordination is commonly understood as the function of the market. As it turns out, however, optimal coordination will not always emerge, as if led “by an invisible hand.” Even …
Cheaters Shouldn't Prosper And Consumers Shouldn't Suffer: The Need For Government Enforcement Against Economic Adulteration Of 100% Pomegranate Juice And Other Imported Food Products,
2010
University of California, Los Angeles
Cheaters Shouldn't Prosper And Consumers Shouldn't Suffer: The Need For Government Enforcement Against Economic Adulteration Of 100% Pomegranate Juice And Other Imported Food Products, Michael T. Roberts
Journal of Food Law & Policy
In the modern global food system - marked by the trade flow of a variety of food products and ingredients from multiple locations in the world - economically motivated adulteration has emerged as a growing menace that threatens the health and wellbeing of consumers, the economic livelihoods of honest purveyors of food in the global marketplace, and the integrity and viability of national food regulatory systems. Economic adulteration is a form of cheating that includes the padding, diluting, and substituting of food product. Although this cheating is rooted in past food systems, the new paradigm for economic adulteration - a …
A Bittersweet Deal For Consumers: The Unnatural Application Of Preemption To High Fructose Corn Syrup Labeling Claims,
2010
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
A Bittersweet Deal For Consumers: The Unnatural Application Of Preemption To High Fructose Corn Syrup Labeling Claims, Josh Ashley
Journal of Food Law & Policy
The recent rise of consumer consciousness regarding the health qualities of foods and beverages has become something akin to common knowledge. Reflecting this rise, studies reveal that labels regarding the health qualities of a food are more likely to increase sales. And among the health labels consumers prefer, labels describing the product as natural top the list. One website reports that according to a recent study, 31.3-percent of respondents thought that "100% natural" was the best description to read on a label, compared with only 14.2-percent who thought that "100% organic" was the best description. "All natural ingredients" was the …
Produce Exceptionalism: Examining The Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement And Its Ability To Improve Food Safety,
2010
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Produce Exceptionalism: Examining The Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement And Its Ability To Improve Food Safety, Varun Shekhar
Journal of Food Law & Policy
Isolated food safety crises are not uncommon occurrences in the United States. Indeed, the history of public scares indicates a pattern of deficiencies in the safety of the American food supply. In the early 20th century, the public learned of the squalid conditions of meatpacking facilities through muckraking publications such as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. In the 1980s, a 60 Minutes report documented research finding carcinogenic properties of a widespread pesticide, traces of which were commonly found in apple-based products. In the 1990s, widespread media reports of beef tainted with E. coli led to both product recalls unprecedented in scope …
The Distortionary Effect Of Evidence On Primary Behavior,
2010
Brooklyn Law School
The Distortionary Effect Of Evidence On Primary Behavior, Alex Stein, Gideon Parchomovsky
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Reconsidering Federalism And The Farm: Toward Including Local, State And Regional Voices In America's Food System,
2010
University of New Hampshire, Concord
Reconsidering Federalism And The Farm: Toward Including Local, State And Regional Voices In America's Food System, Margaret Sova Mccabe
Journal of Food Law & Policy
Why is the relationship between our food system and federalism important to American law and health? It is important simply because federal law controls the American food system. This essay considers how federal law came to structure our food system, and suggests that though food is an essential part of our national economy, the dominating role of the federal government alienates citizens from their food system. It does so by characterizing food as a primarily economic issue, rather than one that has ethical, health, and cultural components. However, state and local governments have much to offer in terms of broadening …
China's Development Of International Economic Law And Wto Legal Capacity Building,
2010
Singapore Management University
China's Development Of International Economic Law And Wto Legal Capacity Building, Pasha L. Hsieh
Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law
This article examines legal and institutional aspects of the evolution of China’s approach to the dispute settlement mechanism of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It begins by analyzing the impact of China’s changing attitude toward international law on the escalation of international economic law research. In particular, the article provides the first detailed examination of China’s efforts to strengthen public–private cooperation in building its WTO legal capacity. China established think tanks to bridge the information and communication gaps between the government and industries. To develop its WTO lawyers, the Chinese government has consistently required international law firms to collaborate with …
United States Food Law Update: Health Care Reform, Preemption, Labeling Claims And Unpaid Interns: The Latest Battles In Food Law,
2010
University of Illinois, Champaign
United States Food Law Update: Health Care Reform, Preemption, Labeling Claims And Unpaid Interns: The Latest Battles In Food Law, A. Bryan Endres, Nicholas R. Johnson, Michaela N. Tarr
Journal of Food Law & Policy
This edition of the Food Law Update explores four legal issues arising in the first half of 2010 reflective of the diverse nature of the food law specialist. As the national debate surrounding the merits of health care reform dominated the legislative agenda, this article first will discuss the food labeling rules embedded within section 4205 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. The authors then analyze the preemptive reach of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the Meat Inspection Act with respect to three separate California statutes regarding animal welfare standards, retail labels on …
Policy Relevant Heterogeneity In The Value Of Statistical Life: New Evidence From Panel Data Quantile Regressions,
2010
Vanderbilt University Law School
Policy Relevant Heterogeneity In The Value Of Statistical Life: New Evidence From Panel Data Quantile Regressions, W. Kip Viscusi, Thomas J. Kniesner, James P. Ziliak
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
We examine differences in the value of statistical life (VSL) across potential wage levels in panel data using quantile regressions with intercept heterogeneity. Latent heterogeneity is econometrically important and affects the estimated VSL. Our findings indicate that a reasonable average cost per expected life saved cut-off for health and safety regulations is $7 million to $8 million per life saved, but the VSL varies considerably across the labor force. Our results reconcile the previous discrepancies between hedonic VSL estimates and the values implied by theories linked to the coefficient of relative risk aversion. Because the VSL varies elastically with income, …
