4.20.15
Irreconcilable Differences—Perhaps
Hoover Digest
A two-state solution could give Israel and the Palestinians the “fair divorce” they want. But it would require two willing partners, not just one.
Blogs
4.15.15
Op. Ed. Strive to Help Entrepreneurs Thrive
U.S. News & World Report
The current state of entrepreneurship is receiving considerable attention as debate simmers around questions of business dynamism in the United States. According to a Gallup article, the U.S. has dropped to 12th among developed nations in terms of business startups. Economists also recently found evidence for this downward trend in business activity and attribute it to diminished incentives […]
4.13.15
The Problem With Antidiscrimination Laws
Defining Ideas
My column of last week, The War Against Religious Liberty, addressed the combustible mixture of the antidiscrimination norm and religious liberty, as it applies to ordinary businesses that do ordinary things, like taking photographs and baking wedding cakes. In dealing with that issue, I implicitly accepted the common premise that the antidiscrimination laws as they apply […]
4.10.15
The Law & Economics of the Series A Gap
CLS Blue Sky Blog
“Scholars agree that crowdfunding regulations in Title III of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act are broken. My latest article addresses their concerns and proposes a solution for crowdfunding based on a deeper understanding of the startup fundraising market—a solution called “bridgefunding” for its ability to provide capital to startups at a particular time […]
4.10.15
Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Paternalism and Filicide
Journal of Indian Law and Society
This article analyzes the failure of the Indian state in providing compensation to victims of the Bhopal Gas Leak. On its thirtieth anniversary, most of the known victims have not received their compensation or adequate healthcare and have spent three decades dealing with the state bureaucracy for their claims. This is a case where the […]
4.7.15
The War Against Religious Liberty
Defining Ideas
Our country is in the midst of a heated and corrosive debate over what protections the law should afford to religious liberties. The matter reached its boiling point on March 17 when Indiana passed a now amended Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was, with significant variations, patterned on the federal 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Hard […]
3.30.15
Wanted: A Color-Blind Voting Rights Law
Defining Ideas
This past week in Alabama Black Caucus v. Alabama, the United States Supreme Court, by a five-to-four decision—with Justice Stephen Breyer writing for the four liberal justices plus Justice Kennedy—struck down Alabama’s redistricting plan for its state Senate and House of Representatives under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The issue arose as a […]
3.25.15
Incompatible institutions: socialism versus constitutionalism in India
Constitutional Political Economy
There has been a decline in rule of law in India, reflected in the frequent amendments to the Indian Constitution. This paper analyzes the historical, ideological, and economic context for constitutional amendments to understand the reason for the deterioration of constitutionalism in India. I argue that the formal institutions of socialist planning were fundamentally incompatible […]
3.23.15
Barack vs. Bibi
Defining Ideas
The past month has witnessed some tumultuous events that have further frayed the notoriously uneasy relationship between the United States and Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party pulled off a come-from-behind victory in the Israeli elections on March 17, 2015. Two weeks earlier, Netanyahu delivered a speech before Congress—at which some 58 members of Congress […]
3.16.15
The Hard Questions: A mature democracy needs to carefully balance individual privacy, national security and business efficiency.
The Wall Street Journal
New technologies are always a mixed blessing, their potential for good carrying with it the risk of evil. The deep challenge for a democracy is to develop legal rules, social practices and institutional arrangements that, at some reasonable cost, separate good from bad behavior. The exponential improvement in computation and communication technologies over the past […]