Black Metropolis Research Consortium
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Firearms and Lynching
Full text linkWe assess firearms as a means of Black residents’ self-defense in the Jim Crow South. We infer access to firearms by race and place by measuring the fraction of suicides committed with a firearm. Corroborating anecdotal accounts and historical claims, state bans on pistols and increases in White law enforcement personnel served as mechanisms to disarm the Black community, while having no comparable effect on White residents’ firearm access. The interaction of these mechanisms with changing national market prices for firearms provides a credible identification strategy for Black residents’ firearm access. Rates of Black residents’ lynching decreased with their greater access to firearms.
I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit. (Wells 1970, p. 62
Racial Time
Full text linkRacial time describes how inequality shapes people’s experiences and perceptions of time. This Article reviews the multidisciplinary literature on racial time and then demonstrates how Black activists have made claims about time that challenge prevailing norms. While white majorities often view racial justice measures as both too late and too soon, too fast and too long-lasting, Black activists remind us that justice measures are never “well timed” within hegemonic understandings of time. This Article ultimately argues that U.S. law embodies dominant interests in time. By inscribing dominant experiences and expectations of time into law, the Supreme Court enforces unrealistic timelines for racial remedies and “neutral” time standards that disproportionately burden subordinated groups. Because the legal enactment of dominant time perpetuates structural inequalities, this Article urges U.S. legal actors to consider and incorporate subordinated perspectives on time. The Article concludes with a series of recommendations for centering these perspectives and rendering them intelligible and actionable in law
Loans to Chapter 11 Firms: Contract Design, Repayment Risk, and Pricing
No full textWith a hand-collected set of 545 debtor-in-possession (DIP) loan facilities for 2002–19, we show that these short-term loans are highly overcollateralized and contain a comprehensive set of restrictive covenants, mandatory prepayments, and restructuring milestones—all of which help produce a repayment risk near 0. Nevertheless, the all-in spread drawn averages 658 basis points—almost five times the average spread on matched investment-grade loans and nearly double the average spread on matched leveraged loans issued by highly risky firms outside of bankruptcy. Textual analysis of court documents shows lack of outside lenders’ participation in the loan solicitation process, but spreads are somewhat lower when outside interest is high. We discuss alternative interpretations of the high DIP loan spreads, ranging from monitoring-cost compensation to rent extraction as DIP loan providers with strong bargaining power share in the preservation of going-concern value helped by the last-resort loan. “The question this debtor had to ask, is: Is this [debtor-in-possession loan] better than a liquidation?” (Mark Ellenberg, in Kary [2009])“In the Great Recession default cycle, no [debtor-in-possession loans] defaulted.” (David Keisman, in Adler [2016]
In the Shadow of Antitrust Enforcement: Price Effects of Hospital Mergers from 2009 to 2016
No full textWe examine 558 hospital mergers during a period of increased antitrust enforcement. Using US data on commercially insured patients from 2009 to 2016, we estimate an average price effect of roughly 5 percent, with a smaller effect for mergers later in the sample period. Mergers between hospitals that were substitutes for patients, were in unconcentrated insurance markets, and were less likely to lead to efficiencies had higher price increases. Using administrative data on merger investigations, we estimate higher-than-average price increases for mergers selected for more detailed investigation and find no evidence of higher-than-average price increases for nonreportable mergers
Twilight-Zone Originalism: The Peculiar Reasoning and Unfortunate Consequences of New York State Pistol & Rifle Association v. Bruen
Full text linkIn New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass\u27n v. Bruen, the Supreme Court held unconstitutional a New York Statute that, as construed by the state courts, allowed an individual to carry a firearm outside her home or business for purposes of self-defense only if she could show licensing authorities a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community. By a vote of six-to-three, the Court concluded that this statute violated the right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment and applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Court announced a general standard for applying the Second Amendment that, in the year following its decision, led lower courts to invalidate dozens of state and federal firearms regulations. Shortly after Bruen’s anniversary, on the last day of its 2022–23 Term, the Court agreed to review a Fifth Circuit decision striking down a federal statute barring people subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms. The Court also seemed likely to review conflicting rulings by the Third and Eighth Circuits on the validity of a federal law forbidding firearm possession by convicted felons
First Amendment Neglect in Supreme Court Intellectual Property Cases
No full textThe Supreme Court decided two cases of central importance to freespeech during the 2022 Term—in both cases without addressing theFirst Amendment implications. In Andy Warhol Foundation v. Gold-smith, 1 the Court upheld a ruling that Andy Warhol’s reworkings ofLynn Goldsmith’s photograph of the artist Prince into highly stylized silkscreens and drawings were not transformative, and thus wereunfair, at least when images of the artworks were licensed to illustrate articles about Prince. In Jack Daniel’s v. VIP Products, 2 the Courtfound that a parody dog toy in the general shape of a Jack Daniel’sbottle, with the label “Bad Spaniels,” deserved no special protectionfor its parody against Jack Daniel’s trademark claim. The Courtreached these results using ideas about the lesser status of profitablespeech that it flatly rejected in other cases the same Term, and with rationales that seem directly at odds with its First Amendmentjurisprudence.
In this Article, we show that the Court’s decisions cannot be reconciled with its approach to any other area of speech and that theyare already having pernicious effects in the lower courts. We consider some possible explanations for the inconsistency: the possibilitythat the Court just doesn’t see First Amendment issues in IP cases;the possibility that a political realignment has left conservative Justices less enchanted with speech in the marketplace; and the possibility that this is part of a broader trend away from holding courts tothe same constitutional standard as the other branches of government, combined with statutes that leave room for substantial judicialdiscretion in individual cases. Whatever the explanation or explanations, the decisions in Warhol and Jack Daniel’s to cut back dramatically on judicially-created, speech-protective rules may have theironic effect of forcing the Court to confront directly the constitutional fragility of much modern IP law
Partisan Gerrymandering and Turnout
No full textHow does partisan gerrymandering affect turnout for US House elections? Common measures of gerrymandering are a function of turnout, which makes assessments of the impacts on turnout difficult. We present evidence from two natural experiments. First, using a nationwide sample, we construct a state-level measure of gerrymandering based on the partisan composition of districts and leverage variation stemming from congressional redistricting. Second, we draw on Pennsylvania and Ohio voter files and leverage the court-ordered redrawing of Pennsylvania districts in 2018 aimed at undoing partisan gerrymandering. Both approaches reveal that higher levels of partisan gerrymandering causally reduce turnout
Economic Sanctions and Trade Flows in the Neighborhood
No full textWe investigate the effect of economic sanctions on trade flows in countries sharing a border with sanctioned states. According to trade models, sanctions are expected to reduce trade flows, as they disrupt established trading routes and economic relationships with suppliers and customers. However, there may also be instances in which countries circumvent trade restrictions by clandestinely exchanging goods with sanctioned countries across the border and trading on their behalf, which leads to an increase in imports and/or exports. To shed light on this issue, we employ a combination of large-N panel data analysis and comparative case studies using the synthetic control method. We find that, in the aggregate, neighboring countries experience economic costs as sanctions disrupt trade. Yet case studies uncover heterogeneity in countries’ responses, with some exhibiting an increase in trade flows. Possible explanations for these different outcomes include opportunistic behavior and increased costs
Discrimination in the Patent System: Evidence from Standard-Essential Patents
No full textThis paper tests for discrimination against foreigners in the patent system. It focuses on patent applications filed in China for which the owner publicly discloses that the patents are or may become essential to the implementation of a technical standard. Such standard-essential patents are of particularly high importance to the owner. We use the timing of disclosure to a leading standard-setting organization as a source of econometric identification and carry out extensive tests to ensure the exogeneity of timing. We find that foreign patent applications are significantly less likely to be granted by the Chinese patent office if their owners disclose them to be essential to a standard before the substantive examination starts. Furthermore, the patent office spends, on average, 1 more year on the examination of such patents, and the scope of the patents is more extensively reduced. Our findings contribute to the emerging discussion on technology protectionism