The Journal of Law and Economics最新文献

{"title":"Overzealous Rule Makers","authors":"S. Barbieri, Kai A. Konrad","doi":"10.1086/711354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/711354","url":null,"abstract":"Excessively tight and biased policy choices of rule makers can be explained as outcomes of competition among rule makers with overlapping competencies and diverging perceptions about the optimal framework. Rule makers who have extreme rather than moderate preferences are more likely to take policy action and preempt others, even if their cost of action is very high. This can lead to actionism, excessive regulatory activity, and radical rule outcomes.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"68 1","pages":"341 - 365"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80336974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Does Government Play Favorites? Evidence from Opportunity Zones","authors":"O. Eldar, C. Garber","doi":"10.1086/722541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/722541","url":null,"abstract":"The Opportunity Zone (OZ) program is one of the most comprehensive to promote development in distressed communities. A criticized feature is that state governors designate zones as OZs from many eligible tracts without scrutiny. We find that governors are more likely to select tracts with higher distress levels and tracts on an upward economic trajectory, which indicates that they select OZs in a systematic way on the basis of objective criteria. However, we also provide evidence that favoritism plays a role in governors’ decisions. The OZ designation is more likely for tracts in counties that supported the governor in an election and when executives or firms with an economic interest in the tract donated to the governor’s campaign. We further explore whether transparency and accountability measures affected states’ decisions. Our analysis suggests that while most measures had no discernible impact, publishing draft selections may mitigate favoritism and promote systematic decision-making.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"7 1","pages":"111 - 141"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87350122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Effects of Government Licensing on E-commerce: Evidence from Alibaba","authors":"G. Jin, Zhentong Lu, Xiaolu Zhou, Chunxiao Li","doi":"10.1086/718851","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/718851","url":null,"abstract":"Inspired by the call in Demsetz’s “Barriers to Entry” for assessing the implications of occupational licensing, we examine how the 2015 Food Safety Law (FSL) affects e-commerce in China. The FSL requires most food sellers on e-commerce platforms to obtain off-line licenses. On the basis of its gradual rollout on Alibaba, we find that larger and more-reputable sellers display an FSL license earlier, and buyers are more willing to transact with a licensed seller, especially if the seller is younger and unestablished. This suggests that the license is informative. Market-wide, the average quality of surviving sellers has improved and seller concentration has increased since the FSL. The platform’s gross merchandise value for food did not decline, nor did the average sales price increase 1 year into full enforcement. This suggests that the FSL does not hamper long-term market performance, probably because it enhances seller quality and market transparency.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"17 1","pages":"S191 - S221"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81905392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Development Derailed: Policy Uncertainty and Coordinated Investment","authors":"E. Alston, Steven S. Smith","doi":"10.1086/715832","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/715832","url":null,"abstract":"We quantify the sensitivity of investments to policy uncertainty by drawing on the Northern Pacific’s massive land grant and the ensuing political battle that generated significant uncertainty to title from 1879 to 1894. Focusing on irrigation because of its high asset specificity, our analysis exploits the spatially exogenous extent of the grant to identify causal effects on investment, inclusive of spillovers to secure land because coordinated investment is generally necessary to capture the scale economies of irrigation. We find that the uncertainty significantly deterred and delayed irrigation investment in Montana, which lowered the state’s economic activity by up to 5 percent. Large numbers of settlers are occupying such [railroad grant] lands, and it is important to them to know whether they can receive their titles from the United States, or whether they will be required to purchase from the railroad companies. The prevailing uncertainty necessarily retards improvements and impairs values. (Noah C. McFarland, General Land Office Commissioner, US Department of the Interior 1882, p. 11) Large numbers of settlers are occupying such [railroad grant] lands, and it is important to them to know whether they can receive their titles from the United States, or whether they will be required to purchase from the railroad companies. The prevailing uncertainty necessarily retards improvements and impairs values. (Noah C. McFarland, General Land Office Commissioner, US Department of the Interior 1882, p. 11)","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"76 3 1","pages":"39 - 76"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85525745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comparative Effects of Recreational and Medical Marijuana Laws on Drug Use among Adults and Adolescents","authors":"Alex Hollingsworth, Coady Wing, Ashley C Bradford","doi":"10.1086/721267","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721267","url":null,"abstract":"Thirty-four states have medical marijuana laws, and 10 states have recreational marijuana laws. Little research compares how these two types of laws affect drug consumption in the general population or in particular age groups. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that recreational laws increase past-year marijuana use by 25 percent among adults and by 10 percent among adolescents. In contrast, medical laws increase adult use by only 5 percent and have a negligible effect on adolescent use. We also find that recreational marijuana dispensaries are an important driver of the increase in marijuana use for adults 26 and older. Our results suggest that medical laws succeed in mitigating recreational (nonmedical) use, that recreational laws produce large increases in marijuana use in the general population, and that underage marijuana use may be an important problem with existing implementations of recreational marijuana laws.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"88 4 1","pages":"515 - 554"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87702861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Effects of Stolen-Goods Markets on Crime: Pawnshops, Property Theft, and the Gold Rush of the 2000s","authors":"Rocco d'Este","doi":"10.1086/707785","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/707785","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the effects of stolen-goods markets on crime. I focus on pawnshops, a legitimate business often associated with the illicit trade of stolen property. Within-county estimates reveal that a 10 percent increase in the rate of pawnshops increases, by around .3 percent, the rate of acquisitive crimes that yield stolen goods that might be tradeable to pawnshops. A quasi-experimental design shows that the effects of changes in gold prices on burglaries are amplified by the initial stock of pawnshops in a county. Overall, the analysis suggests that a larger market for the trade of stolen property can affect burglars’ incentives by increasing the value of criminal opportunities.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"8 1","pages":"449 - 472"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86210330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Loyalty Shares with Tenure Voting: Does the Default Rule Matter? Evidence from the Loi Florange Experiment","authors":"Marco Becht, Yuliya Kamisarenka, Anete Pajuste","doi":"10.1086/708162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/708162","url":null,"abstract":"The contractual theory of the firm predicts that companies adopt charters that maximize firms’ value regardless of the default rule. We test this proposition around an exogenous switch of the default from a one-share-one-vote regime to tenure voting following a legal reform in France. In initial public offerings (IPOs), tenure voting is primarily adopted by families, and after the reform its use increased slightly but not significantly. The change in default rule has no significant impact on companies’ characteristics or valuations. For companies that were already listed with one-share-one-vote systems and would have been forced to switch to tenure voting by default, we observe a revealed preference for the choice they had made at the IPO; one-share-one-vote companies preserve their prereform status, unless the French state has a blocking minority. Overall, the results suggest that once firms have optimized, changing the default rule imposes transaction costs without changing outcomes.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"7 11","pages":"473 - 499"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72610591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Do Legal Origins Predict Legal Substance?","authors":"A. Bradford, Yun-chien Chang, Adam Chilton, Nuno Garoupa","doi":"10.1086/712420","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/712420","url":null,"abstract":"There is a large body of research in economics and law suggesting that the legal origin of a country—that is, whether its legal regime is based on English common law or French, German, or Nordic civil law—profoundly impacts a range of outcomes. However, the exact relationship between legal origin and legal substance has been disputed in the literature and not fully explored with nuanced legal coding. We revisit this debate while leveraging novel cross-country data sets that provide detailed coding of two areas of laws: property and antitrust. We find that having shared legal origins strongly predicts whether countries have similar property regimes but does little to predict whether countries have similar antitrust regimes. Our results suggest that legal origin may be an important predictor of legal substance in well-established legal regimes but does little to explain substantive variation in more recent areas of law.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":"207 - 231"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76015219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Does Vertical Integration Spur Investment? Casting Actors to Discover Stars during the Hollywood Studio Era","authors":"F. Andrew Hanssen, A. Raskovich","doi":"10.1086/710067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/710067","url":null,"abstract":"The Hollywood studio era of the 1930s and 1940s was remarkable for its abundance of glamorous stars. In this paper, we investigate whether the vertical structure of the Hollywood studios, by ensuring studios’ claims to “star capital,” spurred higher levels of investment in discovering stars than was (or is) achievable under alternate regimes (such as today’s film-by-film contracting). The vertical structure consisted of backward integration into talent through long-term contracts and forward integration into exhibition through ownership of theater chains. The investment involved the experimental casting of novice actors to gauge audience appeal. Collecting data on thousands of actors whose careers span nearly three-quarters of a century and conducting several sets of tests, we find evidence of higher levels of investment in actors working under the vertical structure of the studio era than in actors working under alternate regimes. [Those] who were running the studios at that time … gave me a chance—today, you may get one shot, and if you fail, they break your back and forget about you from that time on. Then, you were part of a system that gave you another chance. So, MGM gave me opportunity after opportunity. (Director Richard Brooks [Eyman 2005, p. 419]) You realize that the greatest stars in the picture business were made during an era when they didn’t have one single thing to say about what they did. (Director Howard Hawks [Bogdanovich 1997, p. 362]) The studios owned you, and they wanted their property in great shape. (MGM contract player Jean Porter [Davis 1993, p. 88]) [Those] who were running the studios at that time … gave me a chance—today, you may get one shot, and if you fail, they break your back and forget about you from that time on. Then, you were part of a system that gave you another chance. So, MGM gave me opportunity after opportunity. (Director Richard Brooks [Eyman 2005, p. 419]) You realize that the greatest stars in the picture business were made during an era when they didn’t have one single thing to say about what they did. (Director Howard Hawks [Bogdanovich 1997, p. 362]) The studios owned you, and they wanted their property in great shape. (MGM contract player Jean Porter [Davis 1993, p. 88])","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"43 1","pages":"631 - 666"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91187032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Distribution of Surplus in the US Pharmaceutical Industry: Evidence from Paragraph iv Patent-Litigation Decisions","authors":"Ruben Jacobo-Rubio, John L. Turner, Jonathan W. Williams","doi":"10.1086/707407","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/707407","url":null,"abstract":"In paragraph iv pharmaceutical cases, a patent-litigation decision often determines whether a brand-firm monopoly continues or generic entry occurs. Using unique patent-litigation data and an event-study approach that accounts for probabilistic district court decisions and an appellate process, we estimate that brand-firm stakes in such cases average $4.3 billion while generic-firm stakes average $204.3 million. After the Schering-Plough v. FTC decision in 2002 that upheld a settlement in which the brand firm paid the generic firm in return for delayed entry, we find that settlement is more likely and stakes are significantly lower, despite greater average brand sales for the drugs in the cases. On the basis of this evidence, we conclude that pay-for-delay settlements led to less within-market competition after 2002.","PeriodicalId":22657,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Law and Economics","volume":"17 1","pages":"203 - 238"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89623307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}