Legal Commentary

Z-Scores in Model of 2011 USN&WR Law School Rankings

Posted on December 16, 2010
recent U.S. News and World Report ("USN&WR") law school rankings. This year's model matched the publishing rankings very nicely; comparing the model's scores with the published ones generated an r-squared of .997 (where 1 would indicate perfect correspondence)...

The Skin Trade

Posted on November 18, 2010
So it turns out there?s a market for infant foreskins that have been removed by circumcision (link via Marginal Revolution). A single foreskin can sell for thousands of dollars. A few thoughts that went through my mind in quick succession:1. Revealing that some part of my brain still doesn?t think like an economist, I immediately thought: ?What a gyp! The hospitals are getting money that rightfully belongs to the baby?s family!?2...

The Annual Rite of Overdue Dumping: The Evidence

Posted on November 05, 2010
Back in 2005 and 2007, I wrote a couple of posts about the "Annual Rite of Overdue Dumping." I claimed this event occurs early in the year, especially right after Valentine's Day. I hypothesized that the dump-fest results from a backlog of potential break-ups that were postponed to get through the holiday season...

Three Kinds of Diversity

Posted on October 27, 2010
Diversity comes in many flavors. I here compare three types?diversity of skin color and sex, cultural diversity, and ideological diversity?and offer some observations about the distinctive costs and benefits of each. I conclude that, holding all else equal, a group of people having diverse colors and sexes will enjoy modest institutional gains at low cost, while a group touting ideological diversity runs the risk of high transaction costs but wins a shot at great intellectual gains...

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Libertarian?But Not Originalist!?Constitutionalism

Posted on October 26, 2010
This past weekend, I spoke at the 2010 Students for Liberty Southern California Regional Conference, held on the campus of Pepperdine University, in Malibu, California. I enjoyed meeting a lot of very impressive young people, and sharing with them my thoughts on, Libertarian?But Not Originalist!?Constitutionalism...

Sex at Dawn

Posted on September 23, 2010
I ordered Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá?s Sex at Dawn from Amazon shortly after Dan Savage pimped it on his weekly podcast. I was intrigued by the idea of an evolutionary account of human sexuality that differs from the typical account offered by evolutionary psychology...

Tax Cuts Relative to Tax Payments

Posted on August 12, 2010
So this graph from Ezra Klein is making the rounds. In a nutshell, it shows that the proposed GOP tax cut (really an extension of the Bush tax cut) gives lots of money back to the very rich, whereas the Democratic tax cut (really a partial repeal of the Bush tax cut, meaning a tax increase) is not so generous with the rich...

How Is This a Problem?

Posted on July 27, 2010
Business Insider?s Chart of the Day purports to show the ?dismal? state of America?s household net worth. The authors describe the chart as showing the ratio of household net worth to disposable personal income ?falling back to levels last seen in the late 1980s and early 1990s...

When Nudging Isn't Enough

Posted on July 16, 2010
In a New York Times op-ed, George Loewenstein and Peter Ubel argue that policymakers are relying too heavily on behavioral economics, when traditional -- that is, rational choice -- economics would often serve them better.On cursory reading, you might think this op-ed repudiates the facile use of behavioral economics to guide policy...

Barbie, Political Philosopher

Posted on June 28, 2010
Toy Story 3 offers many pleasures and not a little wisdom. I absorbed them with a shocking output of tears, both the laughing kind and otherwise. At one point, too, I raised my fist in solidarity, moved by the political philosophy voiced by Barbie (brilliantly played by Barbie)...

You Might Do Not Have to Use Files

Posted on June 14, 2010
The grandly-named Public Domain Archive, evidently a production of Osaka-based Digirock, Inc., offers a few MP3s of classical music and historical speeches. Thanks to a suggestion from Tyler Cowen, I'm enjoying a 1942 recording of Beethoven's 9th even as I type...

A T-Shirt to Save Miranda

Posted on June 03, 2010
Professor Crim Pro I ain't, but it seems to me that anybody who has used a computer can pretty easily grasp the holding of Berghuis v. Thompkins, 560 U.S. __, No. 08-1470 (June 1, 2010) [PDF]. In that opinion, handed down just yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court toggled the default on the Miranda warning...

Police May be Monitored for Quality Control Purposes

Posted on May 30, 2010
While police and prosecutors have encouraged the growth of a surveillance state, they don't seem so enthusiastic about the growth of a surveillance citizenry. Maryland and other states have recently seen privacy laws invoked to squelch the unauthorized recording of public officers performing public duties in public areas...

"Robot Weds Couple in Japan"

Posted on May 22, 2010
Want to know my reaction to the headline above? Just read this old post (starting with the second paragraph).

The Fundamental Transformation in Breaking Dawn

Posted on May 20, 2010
If you?re on Team Edward, you might think the fundamental transformation in Twilight: Breaking Dawn is a person getting turned into a vampire. Or if you?re on Team Jacob, you might think it?s a boy morphing into a wolf. But if you?re an economist, it?s the conversion of undifferentiated assets into relationship-specific assets...

U.S. News: Less Transparency = More Fairness

Posted on May 20, 2010
Robert Morse today announced that, in response to evidence that law schools had been gaming its rankings, U.S. News would change the way it estimates the "Employment at 9 Months" measure for schools that decline to report that figure. Paul Caron offers some background here...

Sex For Me But Not For Thee?

Posted on May 09, 2010
Robin Hanson links to an interesting article about which activities young adults count as ?having sex.? The article purports to reveal a double-standard: people are less likely to call a given act sex when they did it, and more likely to call it sex when their long-term partner did it...

A Separate Peace in the Drug War: It Has Begun

Posted on May 07, 2010
Three years ago, I blogged about a "longstanding policy pipe dream" of mine: that the state of California would declare a separate peace in the drug war.?Yes,? the argument would go, ?California does not have the power to repeal federal laws. But it does have to the power to dispose of its own budget and use its own state and city employees as it sees fit...

New Paternalism: Odds & Ends

Posted on May 05, 2010
The Cato Unbound discussion on new paternalism has come to a close, but I want to address a few loose ends that came up during the exchange.The Demand for EvidenceRichard Thaler has demanded empirical evidence that the new paternalism has led to slippery slopes...

The Hand Rule

Posted on April 27, 2010
Judge Learned Hand famously opined that if the burdens of preventing an accident outweigh its cost multiplied by its probability, it does not constitute carelessness to avoid those burdens. Doesn't that little gem make you want to break out in song? I've got just the thing: The Hand Rule, a little ditty I recently composed and played for some students at Chapman Law School...

Rejoinders at Cato Unbound

Posted on April 14, 2010
At Cato Unbound, I've replied to Richard Thaler here, and to Jonathan Klick here. My reply to Shane Frederick should go up tomorrow.

Klick and Frederick Responses

Posted on April 12, 2010
Jonathan Klick and Shane Frederick have now posted their responses. I am now at liberty to respond to all three responses, which I plan to do by today or early tomorrow.

Thaler's Response

Posted on April 07, 2010
New paternalist Richard Thaler has posted his response to my essay on Cato Unbound. I won't be posting a reply until after all three respondents have had their say.

Rational Bias in Forensic Science

Posted on April 06, 2010
Somehow I neglected to mention this when it happened. My article on ?Rational Bias in Forensic Science,? coauthored with Roger Koppl (pretty much the only economist out there studying the economics of forensic organization), was published in the journal Law, Probability & Risk...

Self-Promotion: Me in Cato Unbound

Posted on April 05, 2010
I wrote the lead essay in this month's Cato Unbound. The subject is "Slippery Slopes and the New Paternalism." A familiar topic to readers of this blog -- but this time I was forced to stay under a word limit, so maybe it will be more accessible. Response essays from Richard Thaler, Jonathan Klick, and Shane Frederick will arrive later this week, so stay tuned.

A Question of Timing

Posted on April 05, 2010
Shortly after the healthcare bill?s passage, I made some comments about the weirdness of the timing. Specifically, I noted (following Bryan Caplan and David Henderson) that guaranteed issue appears to kick in three years before the individual mandate ? which, if true, would set in motion a rather severe adverse selection problem...

It's a Joke, But I'm Not Foolin'

Posted on April 01, 2010
From our bulletin board at home:This cartoon takes its inspiration from a conversation?a real gut-buster!?that I had with my kids. April would have foolishness enough, given that dread date smack in its middle?without April Fool's Day. You can thus take this joke seriously...

Landsburg Defends Economics vs. DeLong

Posted on March 26, 2010
Steven Landsburg steps to Mario's defense:You?d never know it from DeLong?s selective summary, but Rizzo?s post is dense with interesting (if elementary) economics. ... Personally, I don?t mind tipping but I found a lot to chew on in Professor Rizzo?s post...

The Knowledge Problem of New Paternalism

Posted on March 25, 2010
Mario Rizzo and I have recently published another article on the new paternalism, titled "The Knowledge Problem of New Paternalism," in BYU Law Review. The article lacks an abstract, but here's a lightly edited portion of the introduction:The ?new paternalism? spawned by behavioral economics faces a severe knowledge problem akin to the knowledge problem that Friedrich Hayek argued afflicts centrally-planned economies...

The Whole Conversation

Posted on March 24, 2010
A couple of weeks ago, Mario Rizzo made a curmudgeonly but interesting post on the subject of taxi tipping. Today, Brad DeLong responds by calling him a ?psychopath?. In Mario?s defense, I made two comments on Brad?s post -- both of which Brad expurgated...

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