Multi-sided platforms such as exchanges, search engines, social networks and software platforms create value by assembling and serving communities of people and businesses. They generally solve a transaction problem that prevents agents from coming together to exchange value. An essential...

In the last decade a number of Internet-based multi-sided platforms have emerged that provide free services to, in some cases, millions of businesses. More such platforms are being spawned as the Internet-based economy grows. This Article argues that under current norms in adversarial...

In an earlier article, Regulation, Unemployment, and Cost-Benefit Analysis, we argued that regulatory agencies should incorporate the costs of unemployment into cost-benefit analyses of proposed regulations. We argued that alternatives to including unemployment costs in cost-benefit analysis —...

Default on sovereign debt is a form of political risk. Issuers and creditors have responded to this risk both by strengthening the terms in sovereign debt contracts that enable creditors to enforce their debts judicially and by creating terms that enable sovereigns to restructure their debts....

Not enough kidneys are donated each year to satisfy the demand from patients who need them. Strong moral and legal norms interfere with market-based solutions. To improve the supply of kidneys without violating these norms, we propose legal reforms that would strengthen the incentive to donate...

This paper considers whether environmental taxes should be accelerated (or delayed) if the environmental harm from pollution is uncertain and irreversible, and where we are likely to learn more about the nature of the harm or about mitigation technologies in the future. It concludes that...

Contract scholarship has given little attention to the production process for contracts. The usual assumption is that the parties will construct the contract ex nihilo, choosing all the terms so that they will maximize the surplus from the contract. In fact, parties draft most contracts by...

One of the constitutive notions of intellectual property is the public domain. These are the ideas, notions and works that are usable by all where no person can invoke a right to block use by another. I am interested in the mechanics of accessing the public domain and the consequences of the...

This paper presents an overview of what economists can say about vertical constraints by multi-sided platforms at this stage in the development of our knowledge about the economics of these businesses. It describes the general procompetitive and anticompetitive uses of vertical restraints by...

In a series of lectures delivered in 1979 at the Collège de France under the title The Birth of Biopolitics, Michel Foucault conducted a close reading of Gary Becker’s writings on human capital and on crime and punishment, within the context of an elaboration and critique of American...