SelectedWorks @ Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law
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Building a Market: From Personal to Impersonal Exchange
No full textAdam Smith identified two key components in the wealth creation process of human societies: exchange and specialization. More than two centuries later relatively little is understood about the underlying process by which people build exchange systems and discover comparative advantage. In this chapter we report on a pilot experiment that explores the social mainsprings that give rise to the market. Specifically, using cash-motivated participants we compare and contrast the personal, social interactions within a village with those of the participants engaged in long-distance trade among a system of interconnected virtual villages
Building a Market: From Personal to Impersonal Exchange
No full textAdam Smith identified two key components in the wealth creation process of human societies: exchange and specialization. More than two centuries later relatively little is understood about the underlying process by which people build exchange systems and discover comparative advantage. In this chapter we report on a pilot experiment that explores the social mainsprings that give rise to the market. Specifically, using cash-motivated participants we compare and contrast the personal, social interactions within a village with those of the participants engaged in long-distance trade among a system of interconnected virtual villages
In the Shadow of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal: The Domestic Trials of Nuon Paet, Chhouk Rin and Sam Bith, and the Search for Judicial Legitimacy in Cambodia
No full textThis paper examines the Cambodian trials of three former Khmer Rouge commanders, Nuon Paet, Sam Bith and Chhouk Rin. Between 1999 and 2006, all three were prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by Cambodian civilian courts for their role in a 1994 train ambush and the subsequent kidnapping and murder of three Western backpackers. The trials are unique in the history of Cambodia, and were the first time that any commanders of the Khmer Rouge had been brought into civilian court to answer for their crimes. At a time when the Cambodian government was negotiating with the international community over the structure of the proposed United Nations-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal, the competence and independence of the Cambodian judiciary and legal system came under particular scrutiny. The trials were a crucial and timely test of the Cambodian legal system, and indeed a test of the willingness and ability of the Cambodian government to bring to justice former officers of the Khmer Rouge. As such, they mark a significant moment in the legal development of Cambodia, and represent an important step towards the creation of a functioning legal system and – at least in theory – a greater respect for legal process and for the role of an independent judiciary in that country. These domestic trials are amongst the most important legal cases to have been heard by Cambodian courts, and deserve the careful attention of the international legal community, human rights scholars and practitioners, and those interested in the rule of law and civil society generally and in Cambodia specifically
Tracking Customer Search to Price Discriminate
No full textThe electronic technologies of the Internet make it possible for sellers to track potential customers and discriminate between the informed and uninformed. In this article, we report an experiment that investigates the market impact of firms tracking customers and offering discriminatory prices based on search history. We find that consumers, on average, face the same prices when sellers have the ability to track customers and price discriminate as when sellers post a single price for all buyers. However, informed buyers receive lower prices when sellers can detect buyer search, whereas uninformed buyers receive lower prices when firms cannot track customers
The Constitutionality of the NSA Surveillance Program: A Letter to the House Judiciary Committee
No full textFollowing the December 2005 disclosure by the New York Times of a highly-classified National Security Agency surveillance program that was authorized by President Bush shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, there has been a great national debate, both scholarly and popular, about the legality of the program. Opponents claim that it violates the FISA statute\u27s requirement that executive branch officials first obtain a warrant before conducting surveillance on enemy communications that originate or terminate in the United States itself. They also claim that, even if FISA statute was implicitly amended by the post-9/11 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), the program violates the 4th Amendment\u27s prohibition against unreasonable searches. Defenders of the program argue that the program was authorized by Congress\u27s AUMF; that even if not, the FISA statute would be an unconstitutional intrusion on the powers the President has directly from Article II of the Constitution; and finally, that surveillance of enemy communications in time of war is perfectly reasonable and therefore consistent with the 4th Amendment. The Congressional Research Service and the Department of Justice each prepared major legal analyses of the program. CRS found the program unconstitutional, while DOJ found that it was perfectly constitutional. This letter/article, prepared at the request of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, reviews the strength of the two arguments and concludes that the Department of Justice legal analysis is more more thorough and much better grounded in the Constitution\u27s text, history, and underlying political theory, as well as better supported by existing precedent
Historical Property Rights, Sociality, and the Emergence of Impersonal Exchange in Long-Distance Trade
No full textThis laboratory experiment explores the extent to which impersonal exchange emerges from personal exchange with opportunities for long-distance trade. We design a three-commodity production and exchange economy in which agents in three geographically separated villages must develop multilateral exchange networks to import a third good only available abroad. For treatments, we induce two distinct institutional histories to investigate how past experience with property rights affect the evolution of specialization and exchange. We find that a history of un-enforced property rights hinders our subjects\u27 ability to develop the requisite personal social arrangements necessary to support specialization and effectively exploit impersonal long-distance trade
Experimental Gasoline Markets
No full textZone pricing in wholesale gasoline markets is a contentious topic in the public policy debate. Refiners contend that they use zone pricing to be competitive with local rivals. Critics claim that zone pricing benefits the oil industry and harms consumers. With a controlled experiment, we investigate the competitive effects of zone pricing on consumers, retail stations, and refiners vis-a-vis the proposed policy prescription of uniform wholesale pricing to retailers. We also examine the issue of divorcement and the rockets and feathers phenomenon. The former is the legal restriction that refiners and retailers cannot be vertically integrated, and the latter is the perception that retail gasoline prices rise faster than they fall in response to random walk movements in the world price for oil
The Impact of Blogging on the Practice of Law: Hit the Snooze Button
No full textTo forecast how blogging will impact the practice of law, we need to consider how some similar, equally revolutionary technology has impacted attorneys. I nominate the clock radio. Given that example, you might suppose that I don\u27t think blogging will radically change the practice of law. Correct. Blogging has many virtues. It offers a largely harmless outlet for extroverted cranks and cheap entertainment for procrastinating office workers. Blogging even stands to do some very real good. I have nothing against blogging; I blog, myself. I simply don\u27t think it will change the practice of law very much. Why not? First, because blogs seldom offer the sort of detailed and applied legal analysis that a careful attorney must perform. Second, because an attorney would find it next to impossible to practice law via a blog without violating several rules of professional responsibility. I thus conclude that neither reading nor writing blogs will have a significant influence on the practice the law
Philosopher King Courts: Is the Exercise of Higher Law Authority Without a Higher Law Foundation Legitimate?
No full textWhen our nation\u27s Founders designed our constitutional system of government as the means to secure the inalienable rights described in the Declaration of Independence, they placed great stock in the structural provisions of the Constitution, even greater than in a judicially-enforceable bill of rights. Although they certainly envisioned judicial review, it is hard to fathom that they would have sanctioned a judiciary that decides every major (and a good number of the minor) political issue of the day. Even less clear is the ground of authority on which the modern-day court rests. This article considers several possible claims of legitimacy for the modern judicial enterprise, and finds them all severely wanting. Indeed, to borrow from Thomas Jefferson, the notion that judges should be the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy