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Category Archives: Law
Happy Birthday, Mr Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton was born on this day (1/11) in the British West Indies.
Upcoming talk
If you happen to be in San Francisco, California this week, and if you’re a fan of this blog (two big “ifs”), yours truly will be attending the 19th Annual Faculty Conference of the Federalist Society, where we will be presenting our … Continue reading
Standing Rock Map
Does the standoff over the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline falsify the Coase Theorem? In any case, we think Ronald Coase’s analysis of property rights on page 25 of his contrarian but essentially correct 1959 FCC paper might be relevant to … Continue reading
Posted in Current Affairs, Economics, Law
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In defense of the bad man theory of law
What is “law”? In a forthcoming essay, Brian Leiter provides an excellent summary of H.L.A. Hart’s influential legal positivist theory of law. (The cover of his classic tome, “The Concept of Law”, is pictured below.) In particular, Professor Leiter, who teaches … Continue reading
Posted in Law, Philosophy
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Legal liability for research fraud
That is the title of our latest paper, forthcoming in the Statistical Journal of the IAOS. Props to Steve Koczela and Orlando I. Martinez-Garcia for their comments and suggestions on the paper. In addition, props to my wife Sydjia Robinson … Continue reading
Posted in Cheating, Deception, Law, Science
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Legal prophecies
In previous papers, we have used Bayesian methods to predict litigation outcomes (“A Bayesian Model of the Litigation Game“), and we have also modeled litigation as a game of poker (“The Poker-Litigation Game“). In our latest work (“The Colonel Blotto Litigation Game“), we model litigation … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Game Theory, Law
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Trump against the world
In our previous post, we mentioned that a small number of scholars (about 150 intellectuals at last count) have openly declared their support for Donald Trump. According to their public statement, the 150 are voting for Trump for the following reasons: … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Deception, Economics, Law, Politics
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Trick or treat? Here is a list of scholars who support Trump for President
Some 150 North American scholars and writers have openly declared their support for Donald J. Trump. (You can access the complete list here.) Below the fold are the five main reasons they give for supporting Trump:
Posted in Current Affairs, Law, Politics
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Is price-gouging immoral?
Gregory Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard, wrote this ringing economic defense of ticket scalping and price-gouging generally. In his essay, Prof Mankiw revisits the laws of supply and demand from his Econ 101 course to explain why he was more than happy to … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Law, Philosophy
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Why doesn’t Starbucks recycle?
Shout out to Elizabeth Drivas, a student in my undergraduate business law class at the University of Central Florida, who posed this provocative question to me during office hours on 21 October. In other words, when a successful firm like Starbucks touts its commitment to … Continue reading
prior probability 