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Category Archives: Law
A private law solution to PR’s public debt crisis (part 2 of 3)
In our previous post, we mentioned that three law students at Duke University (Aden, et al.) figured out a two-step solution to Puerto Rico’s public debt crisis, a simple and elegant solution that is already available to Puerto Rico under … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Law
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A proposed private law solution to Puerto Rico’s public debt crisis
Puerto Rico’s public debt is massive — around $70 billion and counting, but no one really knows for sure as the government of Puerto Rico does not follow uniform or transparent accounting rules. Since Puerto Rico is not authorized to … Continue reading
Posted in Current Affairs, Economics, Law
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Is Facebook an ethical company? (Last Lesson)
Let’s discuss “business ethics” in our next-to-last class (4/18). Thus far, we’ve focused on the founding and initial growth of Facebook; let’s now fast forward to Facebook’s January 2012 “emotional contagion experiment,” a massive online psychology experiment it secretly carried … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Law
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When moral and legal principles collide …
Economist extraordinaire Tyler Cowen poses the following thought-provoking question via Twitter: “Are your views on privacy and #PanamaPapers consistent? Just asking …” In other words, when two great moral or legal principles are in conflict with each other — such … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Law
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“You better lawyer up …” (Litigation & ADR)
We’re almost done this semester! For Lessons 18 & 19, we will review the main stages of litigation, including the pleadings stage, discovery, and the decision whether to settle or go to trial. In other words, we will study how our legal system … Continue reading
Posted in Law
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Blueprints for “The Great Wall of Trump”
An engineer recently drew up a “quick design” (pictured below) of Donald Trump’s proposed USA-Mexico border wall. (You can read the full technical analysis of what it would take to build such a massive project here.) This particular design consists … Continue reading
Posted in Current Affairs, Economics, Law, Mathematics, Politics
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A question for Professors Fried & Shiffrin
Charles Fried is best known (among scholars of contract law) for his “contract as promise” thesis, while Seana Shiffrin is widely known for her influential 2007 Harvard Law Review article on the divergence between contract and promise. We too are … Continue reading
Posted in Cooperation, Law, Philosophy
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Why political pledges are generally worthless
Theory: Economists use the apt term “cheap talk” to refer to mere pledges or promises that are not backed up by credible threats. Generally speaking, a pledge, promise, or vow to do x is worthless when it is not backed up … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Law, Philosophy
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Facebook, Inc. (Lessons 16 & 17)
“It wasn’t about two kids in a dorm room anymore.” –Chapter 25 of The Accidental Billionaires. In our next class, we will revisit two critical events in the founding of Facebook: (i) Eduardo Saverin’s fateful decision to freeze Facebook’s bank … Continue reading
Posted in Law
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prior probability 