Distributive justice plays a starring role in many fundamental tax policy debates, from the marginal rate structure to the choice of base to the propriety of wealth transfer taxes. In contrast, current tax scholarship on the charitable tax subsidies generally either ignores or explicitly...

This paper considers the extent to which there is, or should be, a market for environmental law. Conservation easements raise interesting issues for the law market because they resemble private arrangements through which property owners arrange their own property rights, and therefore arguably...

The American public realizes the growing scarcity of petroleum and the desirability of the development of alternative fuels. In 2005 and 2007, the U.S. Congress passed laws that aim to promote the consumption of renewable biofuels. The Environmental Protection Agency then designed the Renewable...

The role of individual inventors, small firms and entrepreneurs in the patent courts has become controversial for two, somewhat contradictory reasons. First, there is the view that small parties may be at a serious disadvantage in the courts since they do not have the financial resources to...

Designers of competitive electricity systems face numerous challenges regarding how to achieve efficient retail customer access, cost-containment, market power mitigation, and environmental goals. The ideal system would provide retail price and demand response, customer satisfaction, meet...

This study employs empirical data to provide insights into the impact of open standards. This work moves beyond the existing literature's reliance on hand-picked case studies by analyzing a very large number of open standards. The results of this research are timely as governments are...

The creation of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) is generally regarded as an improvement in the system of patent adjudication in the United States. There is, however, considerable support for the creation of a specialized patent trial court based on the argument that we...

In health care, as in everything else, money matters. Of course, money is not the only thing that matters - but it matters a lot - perhaps more than all the other factors combined. What we pay for and how we pay for it profoundly affects the quality and availability of the care that is provided...

This testimony before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs focuses on two issues: to what extent should investment bankers have fiduciary duties to investors? And should there be criminal liability for willful breach of these duties? The testimony...

We study defense costs for commercially insured personal injury tort claims in Texas over 1988-2004, and insurer reserves for those costs. We rely on detailed case-level data on defense legal fees and expenses, and Texas state bar data on lawyers' hourly rates. We study medical malpractice ("med...