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Social Welfare Functions and Health Policy: A New Approach
Get PDFThe social welfare function (SWF) framework converts the possible outcomes of governmental policy choice into vectors (lists) of interpersonally comparable well-being numbers, measuring the lifetime well-being of each individual in the population of interest. The SWF proper is a rule for ranking these vectors. The utilitarian SWF adds up well-being numbers. A prioritarian SWF adds up well-being numbers plugged into a strictly increasing and strictly concave transformation function. Governmental policies are conceptualized as probability distributions over well-being vectors. A recent literature applies the SWF framework to health policy. This article first provides a brief overview of the SWF framework and then reviews some of the key concepts and findings that have emerged from this literature. One such concept is the “social value of risk reduction” (SVRR): the marginal social value (as calculated by the SWF) per unit of reduction in fatality risk for a given individual. The SVRR is the analogue, within the SWF framework, to the value-of-statistical-life (VSL) concept within benefit–cost analysis. This article explicates the SVRR concept and reports on recent theoretical findings and simulations that illustrate the properties of utilitarian and prioritarian SVRRs and their differences from VSL
From Pollution to Resource: Advancing Swine Waste Treatment in the USA
Get PDFConcentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have led to environmental challenges, specifically waste management. Swine CAFOs generate large amounts of waste, requiring proper treatment to avoid air and water pollution. Conventional waste management technologies, such as lagoon and spray field systems, do not prevent air and water pollution impacts. Research for the past few decades led to recommendations for waste treatment technologies superior to lagoons and spray fields. Private environmental sustainability initiatives focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the food supply chain have implemented biogas digester projects for capturing methane in covered swine lagoons to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, research indicates that methane capture alone does not solve the broader pollution issues associated with lagoon and spray field systems still in use at these CAFOs to dispose of digested effluents. The Environmentally Superior Technologies (EST) initiative in North Carolina set public standards to eliminate waste discharge, reduce atmospheric emissions, and control odors and pathogens. Research has confirmed that technologies coupling solids separation with water treatments to remove volatile organic carbon, pathogens, and reactive forms of nitrogen can meet EST standards. A designated EST—the Super Soil System—substantially reduced odor by 99.9%; pathogens by 99.99%, nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) by \u3e90%, and heavy metals (cooper and zinc) by 99%. The ammonia emissions were reduced by 94.4% for the warm and 99.0% for the cool season with respect to a conventional lagoon system. Corresponding greenhouse gas emission reductions were 96.7%. Components of designated EST can be applied to retrofit covered lagoons and anaerobic digestion systems with significant environmental benefits. Recommendations are proposed, based on the collective experience with EST and current trends in animal production concentration, for environmentally safe technologies to handle excess manure produced in the USA
Historical Gloss and Foreign Affairs: Constitutional Authority in Practice
No full textProfessor Curtis Bradley, currently teaching at Chicago Law, is a scholar of foreign relations law, international law, and constitutional law, and he was previously on the Duke Law faculty for many years. He will discuss his latest book, Historical Gloss and Foreign Affairs: Constitutional Authority in Practice (Harvard University Press, 2024). His talk will focus on how the foreign affairs powers of Congress and the President have often stemmed from historical practice rather than the text of the Constitution or judicial decisions. This lecture series was established in 1967 to honor Duke Law Professor Brainerd Currie
Antitrust Without Competition
Get PDFCompetition is everywhere in antitrust. Courts, agencies, and scholars routinely insist that antitrust can, does, and should measure the legality of conduct by asking whether it has harmed or promoted “competition.” The idea that competition is, without further definition, a coherent value that can be increased or reduced—and used to guide the development and application of antitrust rules—has dominated doctrine for a century, and is deployed freely by judges, enforcers, and writers across the political spectrum.
This does more harm than good, and it should stop. There is no single value or quantity, in economics or antitrust law, that competition just is. Competition has long been essentialized, in both disciplines, in countless inconsistent ways. And its enduring dominance in antitrust doctrine causes real harms: indeterminacy and confusion, because the purported criterion cannot resolve concrete cases; utopianism, because it conceals antitrust’s fundamental need for hard choices among desirable goals; and bluntness, because today’s courts respond to antitrust’s vague tests by erring in favor of defendants.
Antitrust would be better off without competition as a purported orienting value or criterion. There are multiple meaningful and plausible evaluative criteria available to which doctrine might turn instead. One such measure, “harm-centric antitrust,” would orient antitrust to guard against welfare harms resulting from the unprivileged suppression of rival incentive, or rival ability, to meet demand. This is not the only option: there are plenty of other plausible orientations for the antitrust project. But the undefined “promotion of competition” is not among them. It is time to let it go
Glacial Progress: Thawing the Path to a Law School in Alaska
Get PDFMy contribution to this symposium is clear: to advocate for the establishment of an Alaskan law school. As the only state in the nation without one Alaska keenly suffers the repercussions of this absence. The resulting void creates shortages of legal professionals, reduces opportunities for continuing legal education, cultural and community disconnection, and contributes to brain drain. Further, it undermines the state\u27s legal infrastructure and limits access to justice. Despite significant logistical and financial hurdles, including the high costs of establishment and sustainability concerns, the need for a local legal institution is undeniable, and this need will only grow more acute. In this paper, I explore the history of efforts to establish an Alaskan law school, then advance to an evaluation of the broad spectrum of legal needs in Alaska, before concluding that the absence of a law school affects the administration of justice through a forced reliance on foreign legal education institutions that disadvantages Alaskans. Following that, I address counterarguments and recommend proceeding with a feasibility study. Finally, I advocate a strategic path forward, focusing on methods to secure funding and accreditation while discussing the impact on interested, affected, and relevant parties
Protecting Constitutional Rights in Domestic Terrorism Cases
No full textSpeaker: Maj Melissa Ken, USAF, Asst. Professor of Law, USAF Academ