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Chancery Court Refuses to Dismiss Action to Enforce Post-Merger Covenant due to Ambiguities in Merger Agreement
Get PDFChancery Court Finds Notice to Non-Consenting Stockholders Not a Precondition to an Effective Majority Written Consent
Get PDFAruba Appraisal: Delaware Supreme Court Rejects Chancery Court\u27s Exclusive Reliance on Trading Price in Determining Fair Value under DGCL Sec. 262
Get PDFPublication Selection Biases in Stated Preference Estimates of the Value of a Statistical Life
Get PDFThis article presents the first meta-analysis documenting the extent of publication selection biases in stated preference estimates of the value of a statistical life (VSL). Stated preference studies fail to overcome the publication biases that affect much of the VSL literature. Such biases account for approximately 90% of the mean value of published VSL estimates in this subset of the literature. The bias is greatest for the largest estimates, possibly because the high-income labor market and stated preference estimates from the USA serve as an anchor for the VSL in other higher income countries. Estimates from lower-income countries exhibit less bias but remain unreliable for benefit-cost analysis. Unlike labor market estimates of the VSL, there is no evidence that any subsample of VSL estimates is free of significant publication selection biases. Although stated preference studies often provide the most readily accessible country-specific VSL estimates, a preferable approach to monetizing mortality risk benefits is to draw on income-adjusted estimates from labor market studies in the USA that use Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries risk data. These estimates lack publication selection effects as well as the limitations that are endemic to stated preference method
Identity Federalism in Europe and the United States
Get PDFThe turn to identity is reshaping federalism. Opposition to the policies of the Trump administration, from the travel ban to sanctuary cities and the rollback of environmental protections, has led progressives to explore more fluid and contingent forms of state identity. Conservatives, too, have sought to shift federalism away from the jurisdictional focus on limited and enumerated powers and have argued for a revival of the political safeguards of federalism, including state-based identities. This Article draws on comparative law to study identity as a political safeguard of federalism and its transformation from constitutional discourse to interpretative processes and, eventually, constitutional doctrine.
The experience of the European Union, where identity federalism also benefits from a textual anchor, reveals some of the complexities of this process. As an eminently vague concept, identity leaves too much room for judicial discretion and leads to unsolvable conflicts among courts as well as between courts and other branches. Like the old sovereignty-based approaches, identity encourages judges to draw bright lines, resurrects jurisdictional conflicts, and discourages cooperation and compromise. In the age of populism, identity federalism draws courts into new and particularly concerning forms of polarization
Data Imperialism: The GDPR\u27s Disastrous Impact on Africa\u27s E-Commerce Markets
Get PDFThe European Union (EU) recently passed the General Data Protection Regulation--a sweeping regulatory framework that sets a new global standard for the collection, storage, and use of personal data. To ensure far-reaching compliance with the GDPR, the EU has adopted a strict take-it-or-leave-it approach--countries that wish to engage with digital users in the EU must either comply with the GDPR\u27s expansive data obligations or risk losing access to the world\u27s largest trading block.
This presents significant obstacles for several African nations. Notably, no African country currently has domestic laws that comply with the GDPR. Even if they did, several African countries lack stable judicial branches to enforce such laws, and many do not have the technological infrastructures or expertise to ensure ongoing compliance. Additionally, the GDPR\u27s extraterritorial effects may amount to data imperialism, allowing the EU to impose its own definition of data privacy on African countries without concern for their unique social values and economic realities.
This Note analyzes how the GDPR negatively impacts several African countries, as well as the difficulties in solving these economic and social problems. Although there are no easy solutions for these complex issues, this Note recommends that African countries adopt data privacy legislation at the regional level, create regional enforcement authorities, and invest in technological infrastructure and training
Addressing the Auditor Independence Puzzle: Regulatory Models and Proposal for Reform
Get PDFAuditors play a major role in corporate governance and capital markets. Ex ante, auditors facilitate firms\u27 access to finance by fostering trust among public investors. Ex post, auditors can prevent misbehavior and prevent financial fraud by corporate insiders. In order to fulfill these goals, however, in addition to having the adequate knowledge and expertise, auditors must perform their functions in an independent manner. Unfortunately, auditors are often subject to conflicts of interest, for example, resulting from the provision of nonaudit services but also because of the mere fact of being hired and paid by the audited company. Therefore, even if auditors act independently, investors may have reason to think otherwise. Policymakers and scholars around the world have attempted to solve the auditor independence puzzle through a variety of mechanisms, including prohibitions and rotation requirements. More recent proposals have also included breaking up audit firms and the empowerment of shareholders. This Article argues that none of these solutions is entirely convincing. Drawing from corporate governance, law and economics, and accounting literature, this Article proposes a new model to solve the auditor independence puzzle. Our proposal rests on four pillars. First, this Article argues that, in the context of controlled firms, auditors should be elected with a majority-of-the-minority vote. Second, while auditors in many jurisdictions are subject to certain temporal prohibitions to be hired by previous clients, the Article proposes that the length of these temporal prohibitions should be extended. Moreover, regulators should also restrict the type of services potentially provided to the audit client. Third, policymakers must pay closer attention to the internal governance and compensation systems of audit firms. The Article argues that increased transparency of audit firms is essential to enhance the independence of auditors. Finally, studies have shown that audit committees often fail to perform their monitoring functions, a major reason being the influence of corporate insiders on the committee. For this reason, we propose to increase the power and presence of public investors in the audit committee
Fortifying American Emergency Power: A Multinational Comparison to Contain Crises
Get PDFCountries will inevitably face emergencies. Historically, governments have exercised immense power in response to emergencies. For responses to be quick and effective, emergency power operates outside of the normal rule of law. While disbanding the normal rule of law may be necessary from time to time to protect national security, the unilateral ability of government to take such action creates perverse incentives to abuse the power. Abuses of emergency power are found across the globe, most notably occurring in the United States recently.
In the wake of the Trump Administration, this Note seeks to identify how and why the US emergency power system failed both to protect against abuse and to assist in effective decision-making. While the Trump Administration has magnified problems with emergency power in the United States, the perverse incentives are certainly not unique to this administration or country.
This Note takes a multinational approach to the emergency power problem, identifying the most--and least--effective safeguards adopted by countries around the world. This Note then offers a solution that balances national security and individual rights. Designed for the United States, this solution provides a way for president-elect Joe Biden to yield power back to the country, a legacy that should long outlast his presidency and one that should garner bipartisan support. While US-centric, these protections are not US-specific. Other countries facing emergency power problems should also take note of the multinational comparison to implement a system that acknowledges the need for swift action during emergencies while also protecting against abuses of individual rights
Predicting Variation in Endowment Effect Magnitudes
Get PDFHundreds of studies demonstrate human cognitive biases that are both inconsistent with “rational” decisionmaking and puzzlingly patterned. One such bias, the “endowment effect” (also known as “reluctance to trade”), occurs when people instantly value an item they have just acquired at a much higher price than the maximum they would have paid to acquire it. This bias impedes a vast range of real-world transactions, making it important to understand. Prior studies have documented items that do or do not generate endowment effects, and have noted that the effects vary in magnitude. But none has predicted any of the substantial between-item variation in those magnitudes across a large and novel set of items. Working from evolutionary theory, we derived six factors that predicted 52% of the between- item variation in magnitudes for a novel set of 24 items. These results deepen understanding of both the causes of and patterns in endowment effects. More broadly, they suggest that many other cognitive biases may be similarly approached, and potentially linked by a common theoretical framework
Defending Progressive Prosecution: A Review of Charged by Emily Bazelon
No full textProgressive prosecutors are taking over District Attorney\u27s Offices across the nation with a mandate to reform the criminal justice system from the inside. Emily Bazelon\u27s new book, Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration, chronicles this potentially transformative moment in American criminal justice.
This Essay highlights the importance of Charged to modern criminal justice debates and leverages its concrete framing to offer a generally applicable theory of prosecutor-driven criminal justice reform. The theory seeks to reconcile reformers\u27 newfound embrace of prosecutorial discretion with long-standing worries, both inside and outside the academy, about the dangerous accumulation of prosecutorial power. It also offers the potential to broaden the reform movement\u27s appeal beyond progressive jurisdictions