Author Archives: F. E. Guerra-Pujol

In our previous post, we shouted out Donald Kochan’s paper on the history of the Takings Clause, available here via SSRN. His work poses an intriguing and important question: From a consumer or marketing perspective, how should we label the … Continue reading →

Updated 11/5 (9AM): We’re attending the eighth annual constitutional law colloquium at Loyola Law School in Chicago, where we are presenting our work-in-progress on “Bayesian voting.” So far, our favorite paper presented at the colloquium is Donald Kochan’s work on the “framing” … Continue reading →

Picbreeder, created by University of Central Florida computer scientist Kenneth Stanley, is a computer algorithm that can create art. (More information here, via FiveThirtyEight. Hat tip: Cliff Pickover, via Twitter.)

In this post, we will explain what “Bayesian voting” and “probabilistic verdicts” are. Simply put, under Bayesian voting a judge would assign a numerical score reflecting his relative degree of belief in what the proper outcome of an issue or … Continue reading →

According to Reddit user Wolfinton, Sweden was the very first country to introduce a ban on corporal punishment of children (1979). In recent years, many other countries have followed suit. (As of today, 52 countries have banned corporal punishment of … Continue reading →

In a previous post, we introduced Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule’s paper “The Votes of Other Judges,” which was published in volume 105 of the Georgetown Law Journal. To sum up, Posner and Vermeule present a theory of interdependent judicial voting, … Continue reading →

In their thought-provoking paper “The Votes of Other Judges,” Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule present a compelling argument why judges on multi-member panels should engage in informal Bayesian updating when they decide issues of law or questions of interpretation. Consider, for … Continue reading →

Coming soon! (Below the fold is the abstract of Eric Posner and Adrian Vermuele’s thought-provoking paper “The Votes of Other Judges.” We will write up our review in the next day or two.)