|
on Law and Economics |
| By: | Eisenberg, Theodore; Huang, Kuo-Chang |
| Abstract: | Theoretical works suggest that granting a supreme court discretion in choosing the cases to be decided on the merits could shift dockets away from traditional case-based adjudication and towards issue-based adjudication. According to this prediction, legislatures can recast supreme courts' roles in society by modifying jurisdictional rules. This study tests this prediction empirically. Using a newly assembled data set on appeals terminated by the Taiwan Supreme Court for the period 1996-2008, we study the effect of jurisdictional-source procedural reform, a switch from mandatory jurisdiction to discretionary jurisdiction in 2003, on the Taiwan Supreme Court's performance. Our study shows that the 2003 reform failed to transform the function of the Court from correcting error to a greater role in leading the development of legal doctrine as intended by the legislature. Our findings suggest that a supreme court can adjust the way it conducts business according to its own preference and the role it defines for itself, which are influenced both by the background against which it operates and the inertia of its members' working habits. Our study informs policy-makers that merely amending procedural rules, without more, is unlikely to change the function of a supreme court. Our findings also suggest that statutorily dictated mandatory jurisdiction may not be implemented by a high court faced with caseload pressure. |
| JEL: | K41 N45 |
| Date: | 2011–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uca:ucaiel:2&r=law |
| By: | Calabresi, Guido; Schwartz, Kevin S. |
| Abstract: | Once a preserve of the American legal landscape, the class action device today transcends geographic boundaries. In the past decade, efforts have intensified to establish collective litigation instruments in diverse legal terrains outside the United States - including Europe - often with the common goal of allowing some form of collective legal redress while avoiding perceived disadvantages of class actions in the American experience. Today more than ever, from legislators to litigants to scholars, European reformers face the challenge - and the opportunity - of making fundamental choices about the scope and shape of the collective legal remedies they wish to make available. Choices about the shape of the class action device reflect foundational judgments about the proper allocation of costs, and there is much from the U.S. experience that can inform Europe's prospective reformers. This article describes the history and current status of class action rules in the U.S., and then compares class actions and another form of extra-compensatory damages - one type of punitive damages — as means of doing the same thing. Although neither punitive damages of this sort nor class actions generally have traditionally existed in civil law systems, they both - and especially this particular form of punitive damages - can, from an economic view, be made to vindicate the same kind of social cost accounting goals. By considering these legal devices together, we hope to shed light on crucial choices facing Europe as it grapples with how best to provide collective legal redress in light of the lessons of the U.S. experience with class actions. |
| Keywords: | Class actions, Collective legal redress, Punitive damages, Extra-compensatory damages, Allocation of costs, Deterrence |
| JEL: | K00 |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uca:ucaiel:1&r=law |
| By: | Creti, Anna; Pouyet, Jérôme; Sanin, Maria-Eugenia |
| Abstract: | The French law “Nouvelle Organisation du Marché de l’Électricité” makes available, at a regulated price, withdrawal rights to source low-cost electricity production from nuclear plants owned by the incumbent. Downstream market retailers benefit from such a measure, up to a given amount fixed by the law, to compete on a level playing field with the historical supplier. Our analysis assesses whether this production release programme is likely to result in a lower retail price. We show that whether pro-competitive effects arise depends not only on the amount of the preassigned capacity but also on the rules used to allocate it to retailers. |
| Date: | 2011–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpm:docweb:1102&r=law |
| By: | Bianchi, Milo; Buonanno, Paolo; Pinotti, Paolo |
| Abstract: | We examine the empirical relationship between immigration and crime across Italian provinces during the period 1990-2003. Drawing on police administrative records, we first document that the size of the immigrant population is positively correlated with the incidence of property crimes and with the overall crime rate. Then, we use instrumental variables based on immigration toward destination countries other than Italy to identify the causal impact of exogenous changes in Italy's immigrant population. According to these estimates, immigration increases only the incidence of robberies, while leaving un- affected all other types of crime. Since robberies represent a very minor fraction of all criminal offenses, the effect on the overall crime rate is not significantly different from zero. |
| Keywords: | Immigration; Crime |
| JEL: | F22 J15 K42 R10 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpm:docweb:1023&r=law |