Legal Commentary

For Law and Fun

Posted on September 16, 2008
All sorts of "law and" movments have popped up over the years?law and economics, law and literature, law and sociology, and so forth. Each has its merits, and each has its acolytes. Were I to choose a "law and" movement, though, I think I'd opt for law and fun...

Housing and Mating Markets

Posted on September 11, 2008
In reading Tim Harford's article on why houses sell for more during the summer, I was struck by the similarity between his (well, Ngai and Tenreyro's) model of the housing market and my own model of the dating market. Here's Harford's description of seasonality in the housing market:If Ngai and Tenreyro are right, then the housing market dynamic is something like this: buyers slightly prefer to buy houses in the summer, so house prices are slightly higher in the summer, so sellers prefer to put their houses on the market in the summer, and with more houses on the market, the market is thicker...

The Rules of Abstraction

Posted on September 09, 2008
Notwithstanding my new gig, I haven't completely left the academic world behind. "The Rules of Abstraction," an article on a topic I first blogged about at the Volokh Conspiracy, has been published by the Review of Austrian Economics. (Online version; I'm not sure when the hard copy will be released...

Watch FRINGE, Tuesday on Fox

Posted on September 07, 2008
This is old news to most of my friends and family, but some of you might not have heard yet: I am currently taking a leave of absence from the university, because I?ve taken a position on the writing staff of a new television show, FRINGE, which debuts on Fox this Tuesday (8/7c)...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Z-Scores in Model of 2009 USN&WR Law School Rankings

Posted on August 26, 2008
U.S. News & World Report publishes scores for each of the hundred or so schools that it ranks highest, and offers some of the data that goes into calculating those scores. To really understand how each of those schools fared relative to its peers, however, you need to know its z-score in each category of data that USN&WR measures...

When Nudge Comes to Shove

Posted on August 25, 2008
Tim Harford is right: ?nudging? people to make better choices is best left to markets, not government. In politics, the nudging rubric simply provides cover for all manner of nanny-state schemes: ?Praising the egalitarian bonus scheme at John Lewis, the department store, is apparently a nudge...

Model of 2009 USN&WR Law School Rankings

Posted on August 16, 2008
As I have every year since 2006, I this year again tried to duplicate the law school rankings published by the U.S. News & World Report ("USN&WR"). Although it took me longer than usual to model the most recent rankings?the "2009" rankings, as USN&WR styles them?I ended up getting the best fit, yet...

Name that Law School

Posted on August 12, 2008
Law schools don't seem to care very much about staking out original names. Consider two Orange County law schools: Irvine University College of Law (founded in 1993), and the University of California, Irvine School of Law (which should start accepting student applications this fall)...

Practicing Practicing the Law

Posted on August 05, 2008
After teaching Contracts for ten years, I'm giving it up to teach Torts. I recall the best law profs of my 1L year cycling through the "Big Three" common law courses (Contracts, Torts, and Property), and I've long wanted to emulate that example. Unlike those, my academic heros, however, I plan to put my students to work practicing practicing the law...

A Copyright Giant Gives Up in Disgust

Posted on August 02, 2008
I regret to report the end of William F. Patry's Copyright Blog. Patry, author of a superb multi-volume treatise on copyright law and Google's Senior Copyright Counsel, not only offered a feast of news and commentary for copyright geeks; he offered it up in style...

Nice to Be Wanted

Posted on July 28, 2008
Rather than blogging, I've been spending my summer attending conferences, hanging out with my family and friends, surfing, working on a paper about consent theory, and indulging in a new hobby: composing and performing songs at open mikes. I've set a goal of performing three new songs each time I play at my favorite local open mike, held the first Monday of every month...

A Friend's Theory on Why Every Dollar Coin Fails

Posted on July 20, 2008
Because thrown dollar coins are too hard on the strippers.

Free Speech in Event Market Claims

Posted on July 08, 2008
In addition to a joint comment with a score of signers, I also responded to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)'s Concept Release on the Appropriate Regulatory Treatment of Event Contracts by firing off a solo comment. I there focused soley on question 14, in which the CFTC asked, "Should certain underlying events or measures--such as those based on assassinations or terrorist activities?be prohibited altogether due to the social perception and impact of such events? What statutory or other legal basis would support this treatment?"Much of my comment tracked the answer I posted here earlier...

The CFTC Deadline . . . Wavers

Posted on July 07, 2008
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)'s Concept Release on the Appropriate Regulatory Treatment of Event Contracts says, "Comments must be received by July 7, 2008." What deadline does that impose? I played it safe, and assumed that I had to send mine in before midnight, this morning...

Moral Concerns That Are .stupid

Posted on July 06, 2008
ICANN, the international non-profit that governs the naming scheme for the internet, has decided to allow ?almost any domain suffix,? rather than limiting the options to the familiar .com, .org, .net., etc. This sounds like good news... but why the ?almost??However, [ICANN chief executive Paul] Twomey told Agence France-Press that the organization will still try to block or reject any domain name that it deems inappropriate for security or moral reasons...

Let's Tell the CFTC Where to Go

Posted on July 03, 2008
The deadline looms for interested parties to respond to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's request for comments about regulating prediction markets ("event markets" in the CFTC's usage). I may or may not get around to a detailed, point-by-point response to the CFTC's many questions...

Misconceptions About Health Insurance Premiums

Posted on July 01, 2008
David Lazarus reports, with a tone of righteous condemnation, that women pay higher health insurance premiums than men. Apparently Lazarus considers it obvious that the sexes ought to pay the same. But why? Premiums differ on the basis of both risk and cost...

Let Prediction Markets Fight Terrorism

Posted on June 23, 2008
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)'s recent request for comments about the regulation of prediction markets includes a number of specific questions. I am not sure whether I will manage to write up answers to all of them before the July 7 deadline, but question in particular?question 14?has attracted my attention...

Krugman on Food Safety

Posted on June 17, 2008
Paul Krugman kvetches, ?Without question, America?s food safety system has degenerated over the past six years.? Alex Tabarrok smacks him down with actual data, showing the trend in food-borne disease outbreaks is clearly downward.But what struck me about Krugman?s column was the following, offered as evidence that the FDA is falling down on the job: ?What we do know is that since 2001 the F...

Cato Unbound: Towards a Copyriot Act

Posted on June 16, 2008
Cato Unbound today published my reaction to Rasmus Fleisher's lead essay on the future of copyright. My essay, titled Towards a Copyriot Act?and Away from it, Again, describes "another future for copyright, one in which lawmakers impose crushing penalties to discourage rampant infringement...

An Economic Puzzle: Fixed Prices with Variable Unit Sizes

Posted on June 15, 2008
I?ve finally succeeded in inserting the code to make post extensions work (with the help of Hackosphere), so this seems like a good time to pose an economic puzzle I?ve been thinking about.In the absence of price controls, most goods and services respond to changes in conditions with changes in price, while the size of each unit remains fixed...

Under Construction

Posted on June 13, 2008
That Blogger template we were using was incredibly difficult to work with. So I'm experimenting with some alternative templates to see if they're any better.UPDATE: Argh. Blogger Beta is a f*$%ing straitjacket.

A Song for Loving Day

Posted on June 12, 2008
Happy Loving Day! On this date, forty-one years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued Loving v. Virginia, 88 U.S. 1 (1967), striking down state anti-miscegination laws as unconstitutional. All friends of liberty should venerate that worthy holding. Loving Day celebrations prove especially popular, though, among people born to parents of different races and among people in mixed race relationships...

Genetics and Life Expectancy

Posted on June 08, 2008
The major problem with using life expectancy to measure the quality of a country?s healthcare system is that life expectancy is affected by so many things other than healthcare: diet, crime, geography, education, and so on. And, of course, genetics...

Upgrading the Pledge of Allegiance

Posted on June 04, 2008
Back in 2005, I criticized the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance and offered an improved alternative. My version of aimed to correct "the odiously unconditional" demands of the present pledge and thus better honor the ideals that gave rise to the U.S. in the first place...

An Anti-Smoking Regulation I Can Support

Posted on June 01, 2008
Already barred from lighting up in restaurants, theaters and the office, Californians may also be banned from smoking in their apartments under a proposal passed by the state Senate on Thursday.At first I thought this was bad news -- yet another paternalist intrusion on the right of individuals to make their own health decisions...

Protecting Private Prediction Markets

Posted on May 21, 2008
My draft paper, Private Prediction Markets and the Law, offers a variety of detailed suggestions about how to protect the former from the latter. Specifically, I offer strategies for avoiding the scope of CFTC regulation, for discouraging liability for illegal insider trading, and for ensuring that a private prediction market does not offer gambling...

Building Exits into CFTC Regulation

Posted on May 19, 2008
Much of my draft paper, Private Prediction Markets and the Law, focuses on nuts-and-bolts fixes for the legal uncertainty that currently afflicts private prediction markets under U.S. law. I'll say more about those in later posts to Agoraphilia and Midas Oracle...

Legal Education from the Demand Side

Posted on May 15, 2008
We law professors spend a great deal of time thinking about how to help our students graduate and pass the Bar?how to supply the market with lawyers, in other words. We spend far less time thinking about the demand side of the equation?whether our students will find jobs...

Insider Trading and Private Prediction Markets

Posted on May 07, 2008
People who run in-house, corporate prediction markets have told me that U.S. laws against illegal insider trading give them nightmares. The problem arises because a private prediction market typically generates material nonpublic information about the corporation that hosts it...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.