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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Fiona Scott Morton; Carl Shapiro |
| Abstract: | The 2011 America Invents Act was the most significant reform to the United States patent system in over fifty years. However, the AIA did not address a number of major problems associated with patent litigation in the United States. In this paper, we provide an economic analysis of post-AIA developments relating to Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs) and Standard-Essential Patents (SEPs). For PAEs and SEPs, we examine the alignment, or lack of alignment, between the rewards provided to patent holders and their social contributions. Our report is mixed. Regarding PAEs, we see significantly improved alignment between rewards and contributions, largely due to a series of rulings by the Supreme Court. Legislation currently under consideration in Congress would further limit certain litigation tactics used by PAEs that generate rewards unrelated to contribution. We also see some notable developments relating to SEPs, especially with the recent reform to the patent policies of the IEEE, a leading Standard-Setting Organization (SSO) and with several recent court decisions clarifying what constitutes a Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) royalty rate. However, other steps that could better align rewards with contributions on the SEP front have largely stalled out, particularly because other major SSOs do not seem poised to follow the lead of the IEEE. Antitrust enforcement in this area could further improve the alignment of rewards and contributions. |
| JEL: | K21 L0 |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21678&r=law |
| By: | Herlin-Karnell, Ester |
| Abstract: | The paper explores the connection between the notions of justice and justification, and explains why their full comprehension enhances the legitimacy of the EU's 'Area of Freedom, Security and Justice' (AFSJ) project. The paper argues that the notion of justice, despite its contested nature, offers a helpful lens for viewing the AFSJ as part of the EU constitutional landscape. Nevertheless, we need to go further when investigating its potential as a theoretical device for navigating the future of AFSJ law. This paper contends that we need to analyse the notion of justice in the AFSJ by starting from the position of security as domination. Only by doing so, can we understand the capabilities of the EU for realizing justice and freedom in a largely security driven site. In an attempt to marry these abstract claims with the reality of security regulation in contemporary European law, and as part of the process for establishing democratic credentials within the AFSJ, the paper sets out to link the larger question of justice to one of justification and ultimately that of proportionality in AFSJ law. This discussion paper is part of a series of contributions to the conference "Towards a Grammar of Justice in EU Law', which took place on 6-7 November 2014 at VU University Amsterdam, sponsored by ACCESS EUROPE Amsterdam, VU Centre for European Legal Studies and the Dutch Research Council VENI grant. |
| Keywords: | Area of Freedom,Security,Justice,Justification,Justice,Security,Non-domination,Proportionality |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbrlc:spiv2015805&r=law |
| By: | Douglas-Scott, Sionaidh |
| Abstract: | Justice is a contested concept. A more graspable version of it, it is argued in this paper, is an understanding of it in the context of what is deemed as 'injustice' rather than justice. As such, the paper takes a markedly different approach than the perspectives which have emerged so far. A main theme of this paper is the disjunction between, on the one hand, strong reactions to injustice, and a desire for some affective dimension to the EU, some normative adhesive that might bind the EU as an ethical entity; and on the other, the very great difficulty in identifying an enforceable concept of justice in an EU that continues to be driven by a market mentality. There will always remain a gap between the aspiration for justice and its achievement. While the notion of an EU that does not aspire to justice is unthinkable, and EU law must at least hold out a prospect of justice, the gap between aspiration and achievement remains huge. However, this paper also argues that it is the very sui generis, supranational status of the EU that creates particular obstacles to the realisation of a shared sense of justice. Due to this structural limitation, it is argued that any agreed concept of justice will remain minimalist. However, human rights remain a powerful symbolic and actual force for justice and a better focus for its achievement, whether we understand them as a singular articulation of justice, or as free-standing moral concepts in their own right. It is also crucial to retain a strong sense of injustice and to assess every element of EU law on that basis. This discussion paper is part of a series of contributions to the conference "Towards a Grammar of Justice in EU Law', which took place on 6-7 November 2014 at VU University Amsterdam, sponsored by ACCESS EUROPE Amsterdam, VU Centre for European Legal Studies and the Dutch Research Council VENI grant. |
| Keywords: | Justice,Injustice,EU as an Ethical Entity,Human Rights |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbrlc:spiv2015804&r=law |
| By: | Sarah Paterson |
| Abstract: | This article examines something of a puzzle: increasing access by UK issuers of high yield bonds to US investors notwithstanding substantive differences in the approach to valuation of the issuer in financial distress in US and UK restructuring law and, therefore, in anticipated return on default. It examines the development of the market in the context of existing theories on the relationship between law and finance and suggests that previous accounts have overlooked the adaptive capacity of the finance market to legal environment and the implications of such structural adaptation for the prospects of convergence in law. Three states are identified: a state in which the market is poorly adapted to the legal environment and reinforces other pressure for change, a state in which the market is adapted to the legal environment and is a neutral influence on, or even dampens, other pressure for change and a state in which both legacy and adapted structures exist, potentially pulling in different directions at the same time. |
| Keywords: | financial restructuring; convergence in law; high yield bonds; Rubin v Eurofinance SA; Chapter 15; Rule 144A and Rule 10b-5 |
| JEL: | F3 G3 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:60682&r=law |
| By: | Steven D. Levitt; Ming-Jen Lin |
| Abstract: | We develop a simple algorithm for detecting exam cheating between students who copy off one another’s exam. When this algorithm is applied to exams in a general science course at a top university, we find strong evidence of cheating by at least 10 percent of the students. Students studying together cannot explain our findings. Matching incorrect answers prove to be a stronger indicator of cheating than matching correct answers. When seating locations are randomly assigned, and monitoring is increased, cheating virtually disappears. |
| JEL: | K42 |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21628&r=law |
| By: | Bartke, Stephan |
| Abstract: | Globally, real estate trade is highly regularized. Usually, the market value is not negotiated simply between the seller and potential buyer but based on an assessment performed by a professional valuer, known as a surveyor or appraiser. This paper inquires about the economic role of valuers in real estate markets. An institutionally embedded framework for valuation intermediation is developed that elucidates a multi-tiered imperfect information cascade. First, the valuer is understood as middleman counteracting information uncertainties on product quality of real estate. An additional constraint is constituted by information asymmetries between valuer and contractor. Drawing on New Institutional Economics, we discuss how the valuation professional with regularizations evolves globally as the superior institutional response to this cascade of information imperfections. A case of empirical evidence is provided for this concept of the regularized valuer. |
| Keywords: | Transaction Costs,Asymmetric Information,Property Law,Information and Product Quality,Real Estate Services,Contaminated Land |
| JEL: | D23 D82 K11 L15 L85 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ufzdps:132015&r=law |
| By: | Phillipson, Martin |
| Keywords: | Class Action Lawsuits and Anti-GM Litigation: The Legal Frontline of Coexistence, Crop Production/Industries, Food Security and Poverty, Political Economy, Class Action, Litigation, |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:gmcc15:211482&r=law |
| By: | Charles Angelucci (Columbia Business School); Antonio Russo (ETH Zurich and CESifo) |
| Abstract: | Numerous countries are introducing citizen feedback schemes to tame corruption. We study how best to incorporate feedback in public officials’ incentives. The main novelty of our proposal is to allow citizens to directly influence officials’ pay. We consider a situation in which entrepreneurs must comply with regulation before undertaking a risky activity. Officials verify compliance to determine whether to grant permits, and may engage in either bribery or extortion. Without feedback, the government has no choice but to tolerate bribery, which leads to too many permits being granted and large negative externalities. By contrast, implementing a feedback scheme that (i) rewards entrepreneurs filing complaints and (ii) ties officials’ pay to these complaints makes deterring both bribery and extortion possible. Our proposed scheme does not require the government to be able to verify the accuracy of complaints. In an extension, we incorporate the role played by intermediaries, and show their involvement makes the feedback scheme even more valuable. |
| Keywords: | Corruption, extortion, bribery, citizen feedback, bureaucracy intermediaries |
| JEL: | H11 H83 O17 D73 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2015-25&r=law |
| By: | Cisneros, Elias; Zhou, Sophie; Borner, Jan |
| Abstract: | Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has dropped substantially after a peak at over 27 thousand square kilometers in 2004. Starting in 2008, the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment has regularly published blacklists of critical districts with high annual forest loss. Farms in blacklisted districts face stricter registration and environmental licensing rules. In this paper, we quantify the impact of blacklisting on deforestation. We first use spatial matching techniques using a large set of covariates to identify appropriate control districts. We then explore the effect of blacklisting on change in deforestation in double difference regression analyses using panel data covering the period from 2002-2012. Several robustness checks are conducted including an analysis of field-based enforcement missions as a potential causal mechanism behind the effectiveness of the blacklist. We find that the blacklist has considerably reduced deforestation in the affected districts even after controlling for in situ enforcement activities. |
| Keywords: | deforestation, impact evaluation, matching, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q32, Q15, Q38, Q5, H43, |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae15:211547&r=law |