期刊-NBER美国国民经济研究局-2008number2_48页_716kb

NBER Law and Economics Program Summary

Core Content

The NBER Law and Economics Program focuses on analyzing the effects and causes of legal rules, particularly in foundational areas such as property law, criminal law, contract law, and tort law, as well as in broader legal domains like corporate law, employment law, health care law, social welfare law, family law, bankruptcy law, patent and copyright law, and antitrust law. The program also examines the operation of the legal process, including the behavior of lawyers, judges, agencies, and legislatures.

The NBER Reporter is an informational publication that provides summaries of ongoing research, conferences, and program activities. It is issued quarterly and has not been reviewed by the NBER Board of Directors. The NBER is a private, nonprofit research organization founded in 1920, dedicated to objective quantitative analysis of the American economy.

Main Topics and Key Findings

1. Property Law

• Oliver Hart explores how property rights with "residual control" can reduce the risk of hold-up by enabling ex-ante contracting.
• Steven Shavell analyzes the use of eminent domain when government information about private land valuations is imperfect, showing that it becomes more appealing when there are many property owners.
• Residual control rights are crucial for contract enforcement and the resolution of disputes.

2. Criminal Law

• John Donohue and Justin Wolfers find that the variation in the use of the death penalty is small compared to changes in homicide rates, suggesting that existing deterrent effects are fragile.
• Criminal sex offender registration laws have been shown to reduce sex offenses against neighbors and deter first-time offenders, while increasing recidivism among repeat offenders.

3. Contract Law

• Surajeet Chakravarty and Bentley MacLeod examine whether existing gap-filling rules in contract law are efficient, finding that the rule of expectation damages is efficient in a model based on standard industry contracting practices.

4. Tort Law

• Andrew Daughety and Jennifer Reinganum explore how price variation can signal product quality, but firms may also choose direct disclosure of quality.
• Cass Sunstein and Christine Jolls suggest that debiasing communications could be a more effective regulatory strategy than strict liability in reducing consumer errors.

5. Legal Process and Judicial Behavior

• Jesse Rothstein and Albert Yoon investigate the "mismatch hypothesis," finding that affirmative action in law school admissions only affects the weakest minority students.
• Andrei Shleifer and Edward Glaeser model the evolution of judicial decisions and show that group deliberation can lead to polarization of views.
• Howell Jackson and Mark Roe find a significant relationship between enforcement agencies' resources and financial market outcomes.

6. Legislative Behavior

• Charles Cameron and John de Figueiredo study the influence of interest-group lobbying on legislative behavior, showing that informational lobbying is closely tied to legislative budget cycles and ideological distance.

7. Corporate Law

• Benjamin Hermalin and Michael Weisbach suggest that increased corporate transparency may reduce firm profits and increase executive compensation.
• Lucian Bebchuk, Yaniv Grinstein, and Urs Peyer document the corporate governance correlates of option grant backdating, including lower board independence and longer CEO tenure.
• Yair Listokin finds that the current shareholder voting structure is ineffective in reflecting underlying shareholder preferences.

8. Employment Law

• David Autor and Mark Duggan analyze the increase in Social Security disability payments, linking it to legal qualification standards, real benefit levels, and workforce size.
• Louis Kaplow models the effect of Social Security on labor supply, showing that it can either increase or decrease labor supply depending on individual utility curvature and myopia.

9. Health Care Law

• M. Kate Bundorf, Natalie Chun, Gopi Shah Goda, and Daniel P. Kessler find that mandated provider report cards increase the market share of high-performing centers.
• Janet Currie and Bentley MacLeod examine the effects of medical malpractice law reform, finding that caps on non-economic damages can have negative effects on health outcomes.
• Patricia Born, W. Kip Viscusi, and Tom Baker highlight the long-term effects of non-economic damage caps, particularly on insurer behavior.

10. Social Welfare Law

• Steven D. Levitt and Joseph J. Doyle study the effect of child safety seat mandates, finding that standard seat belts perform as well as child safety seats in preventing serious injury, though child safety seats are more effective for less serious injuries.

11. Family Law

• Betsey Stevenson finds that divorce "on demand" reduces investment in marriage-specific capital, including children production, spousal education investment, and labor force participation.

12. Bankruptcy Law

• Edward Morrison shows that distressed firms often use state law for bankruptcy proceedings, and that the attractiveness of state law depends on transparency in the insolvency process.
• Simeon Djankov, Caralee McLiesh, and Andrei Shleifer find a positive correlation between creditor legal protection and credit extension across 129 countries.

13. Patent and Copyright Law

• Nisvan Erkal and Suzanne Scotchmer argue that non-obviousness in inventions is not only a function of R&D investment but also of creative ideas and scarce options, and that rewarding innovation based on non-obviousness is optimal.

14. Antitrust Law

• Tomas Philipson and Richard Posner argue that non-profit firms may benefit more from antitrust regulation than for-profit firms, suggesting that welfare gains could be greater in the non-profit sector.
• Claudia Landeo and Kathryn Spier provide experimental evidence on the use of exclusionary contracts, showing that such contracts can occur even when downstream buyers communicate.

Key Information

• The NBER Law and Economics Program is directed by Christine Jolls and includes contributions from Research Associates such as Lucian Bebchuk and Steven Shavell.
• The program meets twice per year, once at a mid-year meeting and once at the NBER Summer Institute.
• The new numbering system for the NBER Reporter began in 2007, with this being the second issue of 2008.
• The Reporter is not copyrighted and can be freely reproduced with proper attribution.
• Subscriptions and address changes should be sent to Reporter, NBER, Inc., at 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-5398.

Conclusion

The NBER Law and Economics Program continues to be a leading source of research on the economic implications of legal rules and the operation of the legal process. The findings highlight the complex interplay between legal structures and economic outcomes, offering valuable insights into the effectiveness and efficiency of various legal mechanisms.