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Category Archives: Law
#LetGurleyPlay
The University of Georgia Athletic Association made $98.9 million in revenues during the 2013 fiscal year, according to this revealing report in the Athens Banner-Herald. The University of Georgia Athletic Association’s main income sources included $21.2 million in direct football revenue, $23.2 million in ticket contributions … Continue reading
Should “The House” always win?
To be more precise, should casinos be able to use the law of negotiable instruments to get around the law of contracts? Or should gamblers be able to use the law of contracts to get around the law of negotiable … Continue reading
The right to recline?
Professors Christopher Buccafusco and Chris Sprigman describe their ingenious Coasean experiment (which at last count has garnered over 1500 comments!) to test how much people value the “right to recline” on airplane seats. Their findings? People’s valuation of reclining vs. not being reclined upon depend entirely … Continue reading
Research at Facebook
Research about research? We are reblogging Facebook’s official (and self-serving) statement in defense of its non-consensual and possibly unlawful research methods. Among other things, Facebook states that “our own research … indicat[es] that people respond positively to positive posts from their … Continue reading
Are “nudges” ethical?
Moral philosopher Jeremy Waldron offers this powerful critique of “soft paternalism” or the use of state-sponsored “nudges” to change behavior (emphasis ours): … it may help to think about a slightly different sort of nudge—an informational nudge, where we manipulate the information given … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Deception, Law, Questions Rarely Asked
Tagged Jeremy Waldron, Risk, Soft Paternalism
4 Comments
“Visualizing Probabilistic Proof”
That is the title of our latest paper on the blue bus problem, a favorite law-school hypothetical of torts and evidence professors. (We wrote up a first draft of our paper in Tarpon Springs, Florida during the summer of 2013 and made some stylistic … Continue reading
Who pays?
Is Wal-Mart legally liable for the wrongful death of John Crawford III? The victim was carrying an air rifle sold at the store.
Tattoos, signals, and property rights
Tattoos have a long history (even Queen Victoria reportedly had a tattoo; see the TED video below), but why do people get tattoos? We see tattoos (or “body art” more generally) as a form of signaling, so what does a tattoo signal, … Continue reading
Constitutional questions
1. Is there a single set of identifiable and determinate principles that animate the U.S. Constitution (or Great Britain’s unwritten constitution, for that matter)? If so, what are they? 2. What is the role of State and federal courts, if any, … Continue reading
Constitutional theory is unfalsifiable
As we noted in our previous post, we are attending a two-day colloquium on Richard A. Epstein’s latest tome The Classical Liberal Constitution. At the end of yesterday’s discussion, one legal scholar (Thomas Merrill) posed the following fundamental question: Do we need a … Continue reading
prior probability 