According to legends dating back to the Renaissance, the ermine would rather die than soil its pristine white coat. The ermine so came to symbolize purity, and English judges adopted this symbol by adorning their robes with ermine fur. For their part, American judges took a more ermine-friendly approach, dispensing… Read More »
This Article seeks to develop a theory of the best timing of legal decisions that is independent of questions about which individuals or institutions should make those decisions. In doing so, it analyzes law as a productive enterprise. Like any productive enterprise, law seeks to obtain necessary inputs at the… Read More »
Introduction
In modern America, law pervades the practice of democratic politics—from the regulation of public assemblies to the minutiae of election administration—and the Supreme Court is perpetually asked to adjudicate political disputes. While we take this highly regulated political process for granted, it has not always been this way.
Today’s… Read More »
Of all the questions about why the recent financial mess happened, the most troublesome have to do with why large, supposedly sophisticated financial institutions took on so much risk. There are many possible responses, some of which are about informational asymmetries, others about agency costs and moral hazards, and… Read More »
Immediately following President Obama’s nomination of then-Judge Sonia Sotomayor to replace Justice Souter on the United States Supreme Court, critics branded her a “judicial activist” who would work without regard to the “rule of law.” Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay contended that President Obama “couldn’t have appointed a more activist… Read More »
More than five years have passed since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, yet images from Katrina’s aftermath continue to haunt the American mind. Many of the most shocking and disturbing images that remain with us today are not from photographs or news footage, but images constructed and seared in… Read More »
Even before President Obama took to the dance floor on the night of his inauguration, his then-Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, had already fired off a memorandum to the heads of federal agencies instructing them not to start or finish any regulations without approval of the new Administration. Emanuel also… Read More »
The past half-century has seen a continuing debate between “retributivists,” who view deserved punishment as a value in itself that does not require further justification, and “instrumentalists,” who view punishment as justified only if it brings about a greater good—typically the avoidance of future crime. That avoidance of crime has… Read More »
Introduction
In this Editorial we focus our attention on two concerns for Law and Economics (LE). The first relates to commensurability and the second focuses on agency. Both concerns are central to LE. The first concern questions the dominant method LE uses for making substantive decisions. The second concern challenges… Read More »
When enacting health care legislation in March 2010, Congress largely ignored potential legal challenges to its handiwork. Even though the constitutionality of the law was the subject of scores of newspaper stories, opinion pieces, legal blog commentary, and much more, no congressional committee held hearings examining the constitutionality of health… Read More »