Category Archives: Law

Legal liability of Michael J. LaCour and others?

Posted on June 4, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Question 1: When a social science researcher like Michael J. LaCour publishes another bogus or fabricated study in a peer-reviewed journal–or in the case of Alice Goffman, an entire book based on dubious sources–what legal liability (civil or criminal or … Continue reading →

Posted in Deception, Law | Leave a comment

Strategic behavior in litigation

Posted on June 1, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Litigation provides many opportunities for “strategic behavior.” Broadly speaking, the intuition behind the fancy word “strategy” is that individuals and firms decide how to act based on their expectations of how other individuals and firms are likely to act. Put … Continue reading →

Posted in Game Theory, Law | 1 Comment

Litigation is costly

Posted on May 30, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

In a previous post, we saw that litigation can be a risky proposition. It is also a costly one. Under the American rule, each party to a case is responsible for his or her own legal costs. Thus, going to … Continue reading →

Posted in Game Theory, Law | 1 Comment

Bail

Posted on May 2, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

A. Kid bashes car window and then turns himself in the next day: a judge sets his bail at 1/2 million USD. B. Police kill defenseless civilian and enjoy a statutory 10-day “cooling-off” period to get their stories straight (see our post … Continue reading →

Posted in Current Affairs, Law | Leave a comment

Copyright infringement?

Posted on April 6, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

J’s on your feet? Via Darren Rovell: A photographer by the name of Jacobus Rentmeester is suing Nike for copyright infringement (you can read more about this case here), alleging that his picture of Michael Jordan (left) was changed slightly by Nike … Continue reading →

Posted in Law | Tagged BUL 3130, Copyright | Leave a comment

Litigation is a crapshoot (“Hot Bench” edition)

Posted on April 2, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Meet the “hot” judges of the new syndicated TV show “Hot Bench” (Wikipedia article here). Unlike every other judge show in this well-worn daytime TV genre, “Hot Bench” features a panel of three judges and goes behind the scenes to show … Continue reading →

Posted in Law, Probability | Tagged Law, Probability | Leave a comment

A friendly critique of Steve Coast’s critique of rules

Posted on April 1, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

We stumbled upon this excellent essay (“The world will only get weirder”) by Steve Coast via the hyper-productive Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution (our second-favorite website, by the way). In summary, Mr Coast argues that there is an inverse relation between … Continue reading →

Posted in Cooperation, Economics, Law | Tagged rules | 1 Comment

Crimes against economic logic (“lump of labor fallacy” edition)

Posted on March 27, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Check out Adam Davidson’s explanation of the so-called Lump of Labor Fallacy in his essay “Debunking the Myth of the Job-Stealing Immigrant.” Here is an excerpt from Mr Davidson’s excellent essay (edited by us for brevity):

Posted in Economics, Law, Logical Fallacies | Tagged Lump of Labor Fallacy | Leave a comment

Jury Duty

Posted on March 26, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Juries play an essential role in Anglo-American legal systems, and now that many countries like the U.S. have abolished compulsory military service, jury duty provides a rare civic opportunity to work with your fellow citizens for the greater good. For our part, … Continue reading →

Posted in Cooperation, Economics, Law, Probability | Tagged Jury Duty | Leave a comment

Two cheers for Lee Kuan Yew …

Posted on March 24, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

A pragmatic politician, a benevolent despot (he was prime minister of polyglot Singapore for 31 years), or … the most influential statesman of our time? (Image courtesy of The Encyclopaedia Britannica.)