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The collection of all scholarly commentary on law, economics, and more

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Warren on Rationality, Choice, and Regulation in the Credit Card Market

Elizabeth Warren (Credit Slips) points to an interesting empirical study by Agarwal, Liu, Souleses, and Chomsisengphet (“ALSC”) which examines consumer credit card selection in a natural experiment setting in which a card company offers two cards to consumers: (1) a high interest rate, no annual fee card and (2) a low rate card with an ... Warren on Rationality, Choice, and Regulation in the Credit Card Market

Pathbreaking Work in Modern Law and Economics?

A project I am working on, and will blog about in the near future, has got me thinking about the following question which I would like to pass along to our readers and my co-bloggers for their thoughts: What, if any, are the truly pathbreaking contributions to economic analysis of law in the last twenty ... Pathbreaking Work in Modern Law and Economics?

The Economics of Customer Service

Is the retail customer willing to pay for customer service?  Gaggles of books have been written on the topic of customer service, and those books sell based on the belief that customers *care* about customer service.  But do they?  Do we?  Do I? The idea that somehow customer service matters to the customer is not ... The Economics of Customer Service

Morrison at ELS Blog

Ed Morrison (Columbia) has a great series of guest blogs at the always worth reading ELS Blog on a few research questions in bankruptcy and torts as well as a methodological entry. I am a little bit late with the link (his guest stint ended December 8th ), but I really enjoyed the posts. Here ... Morrison at ELS Blog

Investing for Joe Common Man/Gal

The Nowicki family Christmas dinner was tonight.  Michelle, the Nowicki family psychiatrist, said (to my FATHER, not me, the securities wonk) “How do I know what stock to invest in?  I don’t follow the market.  I don’t watch the stock shows on MSNBC.  Jim Cramer – the mad money guy – all of that.” After ... Investing for Joe Common Man/Gal

Two in the WSJ

Airlines and Antitrust. Kenneth Starr on Sarbox. The punchline: Even the statute’s co-author, Rep. Mike Oxley, has conceded that Sarbanes-Oxley was hastily written and enacted. In its rush to “do something” about corporate scandals, Congress overstepped the bounds of its authority. It is time to call Congress back, both to help our economy and reaffirm ... Two in the WSJ

Markel on D'Amato

Dan Markel at Prawfs has posted some reactions to D’Amato’s piece on The Interdisciplinary Turn in Legal Education.  It is an excellent post and well worth reading, as is D’Amato’s article.

"There is Little Evidence that Economic Analysis of Law Has Changed [Antitrust] in Any Noticeable Way"

Huh? This statement appears in this article by Professor Anthony D’Amato (Northwestern) on the failure of interdisciplinary scholarship in the legal academy. HT: Brian Leiter. Quite frankly, I was very surprised to see a claim like this in a paper written after 1970 or so. Even in corners of the academy hostile to economic analysis, ... "There is Little Evidence that Economic Analysis of Law Has Changed [Antitrust] in Any Noticeable Way"

US World and News Reports

Do we know when the Law School rankings for 2008 are due out?  Just today, I was having a conversation with a colleague about z-scores and standard deviations and all that, and I found myself yearning to apply my mathmatical skills to the most recent information. Do we know what the due date is?

Loyalty Discount Propositions

One of the more interesting parts of the November 29 DOJ/FTC hearing on loyalty discounts (where I presented these remarks) was the panelists’ discussion of a number of “propositions” advanced, for purposes of discussion only, by the agencies. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to discuss all the propositions. I’ve reproduced them below the fold, along ... Loyalty Discount Propositions

Stay Classy San Diego

My prediction that the Chargers would win it all last month is not looking so bad after the clinic the Bolts put on the Broncos yesterday to clinch the division. Of course, the big news in the game is that Ladainian Tomlinson broke the all-time single season TD record. For those who didn’t see the ... Stay Classy San Diego

Bye Bye, Dr. Miles.

So it looks like Dr. Miles is going down. That’s a good thing. For non-antitrusters, Dr. Miles is a 1911 Supreme Court decision holding that “minimum vertical resale price maintenance” is per se illegal — that is, automatically illegal without inquiry into the practice’s actual effect on competition. Minimum vertical resale price maintenance (or “RPM”) ... Bye Bye, Dr. Miles.