Legal Commentary

Economics of the Undead: Book and Blog

Posted on July 03, 2014
Is anyone still checking this blog in the hope that I might start blogging again? If so, you're in luck! To publicize my new book, Economics of the Undead (co-edited with James Dow and featuring chapters written by 20+ other authors), I have created an Economics of the Undead website...

Breaking Bad and the Healthcare System

Posted on September 13, 2013
There?s a meme floating around that the storyline of Breaking Bad constitutes a scathing indictment of the U.S. healthcare system. The latest entry is this comic strip, which says that if Breaking Bad had been set in the U.K., it would be an ?entirely different story? ? one that ends in just 5 panels...

Meat-Without-Feet and Animal Utilitarianism

Posted on August 05, 2013
Everyone?s talking about the lab-grown meat burger. I?ve been expecting this for years, and I think it?s extremely cool. I love me some science, and I?d totally give the burger a try. But let?s suppose the technology improves and the price drops enough for meat-without-feet to displace traditional beef...

Marginal Utility Theory of Daylight Saving Time

Posted on March 09, 2013
I just posted this on Facebook, and I thought I might as well post it here as well. This is the marginal utility theory of Daylight Saving Time. If you could, you would allocate your daylight according to marginal utility -- starting with the most valuable hour to have daylight, then the second most valuable hour to have daylight, and so on...

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Economics of the Undead: Call for Abstracts

Posted on March 08, 2013
Anyone wondering what kind of projects have been keeping me from blogging lately? Well, here's one...Call for AbstractsEconomics of the Undead: Blood, Brains & BenjaminsGlen Whitman & James P. Dow, EditorsThe editors seek abstracts for essays exploring the relationship between economics and the undead, especially zombies and vampires...

CFTC Targets Prediction Markets; Hits First Amendment

Posted on December 12, 2012
Would you pay good money for accurate predictions about important events, such as election results or military campaigns? Not if the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has its way. It recently took enforcement action against overseas prediction markets run by InTrade and TEN...

The Freeman on Free Cities

Posted on November 27, 2012
The Foundation for Economic Education recently invited me to join its flagship publication, The Freeman, as a regular contributor. It just published my first article, No Exit: Are Honduran Free Cities DOA? Here's an excerpt: Eager to bring Hong Kong-style growth to their beleaguered Central American country, Honduras amended its constitution in 2011...

To My Fellow Libertarian Voters

Posted on November 05, 2012
I plan to vote on Tuesday, for the same reasons I enunciated eight years ago. Nevertheless, I respect the position of libertarians who choose not to vote on grounds of principle (?the whole system is corrupt and I refuse to take part?) or rational cost-benefit analysis (?my vote won?t make a difference, and I might get hit by a truck on the way to polls?)...

Grace in the Face of Change

Posted on July 27, 2012
I just learned today that the Laemmle Sunset 5, a theater famous for showing independent films, shut down late last year. The theater's website explains the theater's demise:Eventually, new multiplexes such as the Arclight and the Grove opened nearby and began nabbing the artful specialty films that had long been the Sunset 5?s exclusive domain...

Penn State's Punishment and Social Facts

Posted on July 26, 2012
My father sent the following email to a group of family and friends:Penn State?s NCAA Punishment:1. A fine of $60 million, which is approximately equal to the (past) annual gross revenue of the football program.2. A four-year ban from postseason play; thus, Penn State will not be allowed to share in the conference?s bowl revenue, an estimated loss of about $13 million a year...

Partisan Statistic Alert

Posted on July 10, 2012
Some people are touting the statistics reported here, which show that the national debt has increased by a smaller percentage under Obama than the four previous presidents.Reagan - 189% Bush - 55% Clinton - 37% Bush - 86% Obama - 35%I double-checked the numbers, and they are technically correct...

Accuracy of Model of the 2013 USN&WR Law School Rankings

Posted on June 12, 2012
As in every year since 2005, I?ve again built a model of the U.S. News & World Report ("USN&WR") law school rankings. This latest effort generated a record-high r-squared coefficient: .998673. More about what that means?and more about the one law school that doesn?t fit?below...

U.S. News & World Report Improves Transparency of Law School Rankings

Posted on May 22, 2012
Huzzah for U.S. News and World Report! The most recent edition of its law school rankings includes the median LSAT and GPA of each school?s entering class. Finally. I have long argued that USN&WR should publish all of the data that it uses in its rankings...

Circular Reasoning

Posted on May 15, 2012
Former student Gabe Krupa, remembering a lecture I gave on the topic of misleading graphs and statistics, alerted me to this graphic showing the fall in Yahoo?s enterprise value. (I didn?t know the term enterprise value, but apparently it?s similar to market capitalization but with a few tweaks...

Wilkinson vs. Zwolinski on Voluntary Tax Contributions

Posted on April 22, 2012
Matt Zwolinski offers an old chestnut libertarian argument: that rich people like Warren Buffett, who advocate greater tax rates on people like themselves, should voluntarily give more money to the government. The fact that they don?t ? as when Buffett donates $37 billion to the Gates Foundation instead of the government ? indicates that they think their money is best spent elsewhere...

Are STEM Degrees Already Subsidized More?

Posted on January 10, 2012
Alex Tabarrok argues in his ebook, Launching the Innovation Renaissance, that graduates with STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) degrees are more likely to create innovations that benefit the rest of society ? and therefore they are relatively more deserving of educational subsidies than students in other disciplines...

Quartering: A Forbidden M&M in the Bowl of Rights

Posted on October 17, 2011
My most recent paper, ?Property? in the Constitution: The View from the Third Amendment, 20 William & Mary Bill of Rights J. __ (2012) (forthcoming), explains how one of the most obscure provisions in the Constitution can help to clarify one of its most important terms...

U.S. Supreme Court: ?Private? = ?Public?

Posted on October 15, 2011
What does ?private? mean in the U.S. Constitution? The word appears there only once, in the Fifth Amendment?s Taking Clause: ?[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.? You might think that ?private? means something like ?not owned by the government...

Pan Am and the Economics of Hot Flight Attendants

Posted on October 11, 2011
A quick break from the economics of Aesop, so I can talk about the economics of ABC?s Pan Am before it gets canceled. Not that I want it to get canceled; I watched the pilot and liked it. But the Nielsen numbers say I should speak now while it?s still topical...

Aesop Econ: The Grasshopper and the Ants

Posted on September 21, 2011
Here?s one I remember from childhood:THE ANTS were spending a fine winter?s day drying grain collected in the summertime. A Grasshopper, perishing with famine, passed by and earnestly begged for a little food. The Ants inquired of him, ?Why did you not treasure up food during the summer?? He replied, ?I had not leisure enough...

Aesop Econ: Hercules and the Wagoner

Posted on September 14, 2011
A CARTER was driving a wagon along a country lane, when the wheels sank down deep into a rut. The rustic driver, stupefied and aghast, stood looking at the wagon, and did nothing but utter loud cries to Hercules to come and help him. Hercules, it is said, appeared and thus addressed him: ?Put your shoulders to the wheels, my man...

Aesop Econ: The Two Dogs

Posted on September 09, 2011
A MAN had two dogs: a Hound, trained to assist him in his sports, and a Housedog, taught to watch the house. When he returned home after a good day?s sport, he always gave the Housedog a large share of his spoil. The Hound, feeling much aggrieved at this, reproached his companion, saying, ?It is very hard to have all this labor, while you, who do not assist in the chase, luxuriate on the fruits of my exertions...

Aesop Econ: The Charcoal-Burner and the Fuller

Posted on September 06, 2011
My Amazon Kindle app came with a free copy of Aesop?s Fables (translation by George Fyler Townsend), which I began reading a few days ago. Aside from being charmed by their brevity and deceptive simplicity, I was also struck by how many of the stories involved economic concepts -- some obviously, others subtly...

What is Originalism Good For?

Posted on September 02, 2011
Originalism--the theory that we should Interpret the Constitution according to the public meaning of its words at the time of its ratification--serves important instrumental goals. It promises to give relatively clear and objective definitions to crucial but contestable terms, such as ?cruel and unusual? or ?due process of law,? by recurring to the linguistic usage of those who ratified the Constitution...

Volokh on the Constitution's Plain, Present, Public Meaning

Posted on August 12, 2011
My friend, Eugene Volokh, has posted some thoughtful comments on my consent-based approach to reading the Constitution. His excellent questions show one benefit of looking for the plain, present, public meaning of the Constitution: It gives us a fresh look at a document we risk treating as putty for judges or as a dead historical artifact...

Unions, Education, and Simpson's Paradox

Posted on March 09, 2011
I know, I know, I never blog anymore. I hope to change that soon. Maybe.But in the meantime, I had to draw attention to this post by IowaHawk. As Tyler Cowen observes, the post is marred by some unnecessary partisan vitriol. But the central point is nevertheless fascinating...

Condoms, Cheap Pizza, Beer, and . . . the Rule of Law

Posted on February 18, 2011
Condoms, cheap pizza, beer, lotto tickets, bongs, military gear . . . what have they got to do with the rule of law? LearnLiberty, a project sponsored by the the Institute for Humane Studies, recently aired a video that I wrote and narrated on the question...

Hoffman Interviews Bell on Kosmos Online

Posted on February 09, 2011
Jeanne Hoffman, of Kosmos Online, a project sponsored by the friendly folks at the Institute for Humane Studies, recently recorded a podcast interview with me. Our discussion covered such things as career engineering, how IHS helped me win freedom, and the current state of intellectual property scholarship...

FedSoc Presentation on Libertarian?But Not Originalist!?Consitutionalism

Posted on February 01, 2011
Should libertarians interpret the Constitution according to its original meaning? I argue not. Instead, they should read the Consitution according to its plain, present, public meaning. I gave a very brief presentation on the topic at the 13th Annual Federalist Society Annual Conference, held in San Francisco on Friday, January 2011:Among other things, this ?consensualist? approach to constitutional theory implies that we should:Interpret the Constitution according to its plain, present, public meaning;Construct the Constitution as we would a standard form agreement, thus favoring individual rights over federal powers; andDecide cases involving Constitutional rights by Citizen Courts structured akin to the panels that help to guarantee the fairness of commercial arbitration procedures...

It the Constitution True?

Posted on January 10, 2011
Just because the Founders ratified a Constitution as they understood it does not mean that we ratify one with the same meaning. We ratify our Constitution, as we understand it, or not. We cannot justly be bound by others' choices.Consider the Constitution as might a philosopher of language, asking, "Is the preamble's claim about ordaining and establishing the Constitution true?" The easy answer is, "Yes, it was made true by the ratification of at least nine state conventions...

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