In a world of zero transaction costs, one should observe optimal invention and innovation. As long as a system of enforceable contracts were in place, firms with inventive capacity and firms requiring inventions would negotiate for the optimal production of new creations. With adequate...

When members of deliberating groups speak with one another, their predeliberation tendencies often become exacerbated as their views become more extreme. The resulting phenomenon - group polarization - has been observed in many settings, and it bears on the actions of juries, administrative...

It is increasingly clear that the world would be better off with an international agreement to control greenhouse gas emissions. What remains poorly understood is that the likely costs and benefits of emissions controls are highly variable across nations. Most important, prominent projection...

This paper examines the data on responsibility for climate change due to past emissions. It addresses two aspects of responsibility. First it shows that the data present a mixed picture. By some measures, developed or wealthy countries are responsible for most past emissions while on other...

Greenhouse gas reductions would cost some nations much more than others, and benefit some nations far less than others. Significant reductions would impose especially large costs on the United States, and recent projections suggest that the United States has relatively less to lose from climate...

Diverse measures are used as proxies for judicial ability, ranging from the college and law school a judge attended to the rate at which her decisions are cited by other judges. Yet, there has been little serious examination of which of these ability measures is better or worse at predicting the...

One of the major controversies in modern intellectual property law is the extent to which property rights conceptions, developed in connection with land or other forms of tangible property, can be carried over to different forms of property, such as rights in the spectrum or in patents and...

The current pricing mechanism for carbon in the EU, the EU emissions trading system, only covers 40 percent of emissions. Carbon taxation currently plays no role. The Commission has recently proposed to revise the energy tax system in the EU to include a carbon tax component. This paper...

The concept of quot;irreversibilityquot; plays a large role in the theory and practice of environmental protection. Indeed, the concept is explicit in some statements of the Precautionary Principle. But the idea of irreversibility remains poorly defined. Because time is linear, any loss is, in a...

This article explores the spectacular prevalence, and failure, of the single most common technique for protecting personal autonomy in modern society: mandated disclosure. The article has four sections:(1) A comprehensive summary of the recurring use of mandated disclosures, in many forms and...