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The Contextual Role of Social Insurance and Industrial Age History for Teaching Workers\u27 Compensation Insurance
No full textRecent Developments - 2022
No full textThe Heckerling Institute presents the most important developments in the areas of estate planning and estate, gift and income taxation. Now in its fifty-seventh year, the Heckerling Institute is widely regarded as the premier estate planning program in the country. This publication w/index contains articles based on the podium lectures delivered at the Heckerling Institute
Business Method Innovation in US Manufacturing and Trade
No full textProblem Definition. In what kinds of business method innovation do firms in the manufacturing and trade sectors engage? Does engaging in business method innovation create value for these firms? The present paper answers these questions using empirical evidence.Methodology/Results. Using text analysis of business method patents, we show that business method innovation in the US manufacturing and trade sectors is aimed primarily at improving the business operations that support the sales of tangible products—that is, how the firm targets customers, manages product delivery, or enhances the product through service offerings. We then evaluate the effect of having business method innovation, as evidenced by patents, on a firm’s value. Leveraging the exogenous shock of the State Street ruling, which first recognized business methods as a patentable category of innovation, we identify a set of firms that possess business method patents and a matched set of comparable firms without such patents. Then, using a difference-in-differences with firm fixed effects model on the matched sample, we show that the valuation of the former set of firms increased by 9% after State Street, as measured by Tobin’s q. We further show that (1) business method innovators in the manufacturing sector gained a 7% increase, whereas business method innovators in the trade sectors gained a 25% increase; and (2) only firms with broader innovation scope—that is, business method innovations covering the range of customer targeting, product delivery, and service support of products—experienced a significant (18%) value bump. Managerial Implications. This research provides evidence that business method innovation in the manufacturing and trade sectors primarily involves innovating in business operations that support product sales. Our work also provides empirical support for the proposition that engaging in business method innovation drives manufacturing and trade firms’ market performance
Private Third-Party Verification of Product Claims: Lessons from Kosher Certification
No full textFood consumers often desire products with attributes that are not discernable from a product’s appearance. Unscrupulous sellers may be tempted to misrepresent the presence of these “credence qualities.” In response, reputable sellers wishing to distinguish truthful product claims from spurious ones can provide verification using third-party certification. Third-party certification marks on product labels attesting to a wide variety of credence qualities are now commonplace. This chapter analyzes the global system of kosher food certification to develop a general model of reliable third-party verification of credence qualities
Commission Chairs
No full textSince 1950, Congress has granted chairs of many multimember commissions chief-executive authority as a way to increase administrative efficiency. Although it intended to maintain the ability of commission majorities to dictate policy, it inadvertently strengthened the authority of chairs to such anextent that majorities cannot enact their preferred policies without their chair’s cooperation. Using their agenda authority and their authority to direct staff, chairs dictate which policy documents staff develop and which items receive a vote, meaning that a commissionmajority cannot enact policy if its chair prohibits staff from drafting a rule or refuses to allow a vote to occur. Despite this shift, it is common among scholars and judges to think of commissions as bodies of equals, resulting in applications of the unitary executive theory that fail to appropriately take into account the substantial amount of power chairs wield.This Article is the first comprehensive study of the authority of commission chairs, and it examines the statutes and power dynamics scholars routinely ignore. Using a novel dataset of all federal executive-branch commissions, this Article finds that the majority of commissions operate under a “strong-chair” model, while associate commissioners in fewer than one-in-five commissions have any statutory authority to restrict their chairs’ actions. Using this data, it evaluates the effects of the strong-chair model on commissiongovernance and offers several changes that, if made, could give associate commissioners more control and supervisory authority over the agencies. Doing so would return chairs to their original role as officials who simply keep the agencies operating efficiently and ensure that majority rule drives commission actions. The Article then evaluates this research’s implications for doctrinal applications of the unitary executive theory. Because presidents appoint commission chairs, this research suggests that presidential control of independent agencies is far less attenuated than proponents of the unitary executive theory presently contemplate. Indeed, the prevalence of the strong-chair model and resultant presidential control over commission activities should persuade courts that statutory removal protections for commissions are consistent with the purposes of unitary control of the executive branch
Recent Developments in Federal Income Taxation: The Year 2022
No full textThis Article summarizes and provides context to understand the most important developments in federal income taxation for the year 2022. The items discussed primarily consist of the following: (i) significant amendments to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended; (ii) important judicial decisions; and (iii) noteworthy administrative rulings and regulations promulgated by the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (the Service). This Article primarily focuses on subjects of broad general interest: tax accounting rules, determination of gross income, allowable deductions, treatment of capital gains and losses, corporate and partnership taxation, exempt organizations, and procedure and penalties. This Article generally does not address items relating to federal estate and gift taxation, income taxation of trusts and estates, qualified pension and profit-sharing plans, international taxation, or specialized industries such as banking, insurance, and financial services
SB 148 - Amendments to the Nonprofit Code
Get PDFThe Act revises, simplifies, and modernizes the Georgia Nonprofit Corporation Code, providing greater flexibility in forming and running such organizations
The Law of Contingent Control in Venture Capital
No full textContingent control (CC) is a key enabler of startup growth and venture capital. To preserve adequate incentives and mitigate risks, venture finance deals distribute startups\u27 governance rights among investors and founders based on performance measures at different points in time. For example, granting greater decision-making powers to outperforming founders or depriving them of such prerogatives when they underperform. Crucially, these rights are distributed ex ante, through carefully designed contracts and securities, avoiding the costs and potential failure of future negotiations. This paper shows how corporate law determines the structure of CC: higher costs of structuring CC through bespoke securities, such as restricted shares or convertible preferred stock, incentivize the use of shareholders\u27 agreements and shadow governance structures in VC-backed companies. These findings demonstrate that cross-country differences in security design and capital structures are not only explained by the characteristics of transacting parties and deals or by tax regulation, but also by the regulation of non-listed companies, which has been evolving in the blind spot of legal and financial scholarship. The paper argues that corporate laws in entrepreneurial economies should be recalibrated to facilitate *676 security design and discourage the disproportionate use of shareholders\u27 agreements