Regulation articles from December 2005

Regulation archives from December 2005

Texas Telecom Legislation.(Mercatus Reports)
December 22, 2005... STATUS: Under court challenge A summer 2005 special session of the Texas Legislature enacted a much-discussed telecommunications bill that Gov. Rick Perry signed into law in September. The law is now under challenge in court. The Texas...

Natural gas quality standards.(Mercatus Reports)
December 22, 2005... STATUS: Petitions await FERC action Just when consumers thought they had heard all the bad news about winter" natural gas prices, along comes an impasse that could elevate gas prices just a bit more. Natural gas producers have...

Orphan works.(Copyright law)
December 22, 2005... STATUS: Report expected by early 2006 The Copyright Office has recently completed an inquiry into the orphan works problem and is expected to issue a report with its findings soon. Orphan works are copyrighted works whose owners are...

The very boring reasons behind high gas prices.(Mercatus Reports: Commentary)
December 22, 2005... Washington, D.C., and the state capitals are abuzz with talk of a Big Oil conspiracy intended to keep gasoline prices artificially high. Governors and lawmakers are demanding investigations, and everyone seems certain that incriminating...

Do consumers value fuel economy?(briefly noted)
December 22, 2005... EVEN BEFORE THE 2005 HURRICANE season sent gasoline prices to historical highs, rising fuel prices were leading to calls for a political response for relief. Some focused on augmenting supply, renewing the push to open the Arctic National...

What to do about bad patents?(BRIEFLY NOTED)
December 22, 2005... CONGRESS IS CURRENTLY CONSIDERING the most significant reform to the patent system in nearly half a century. And no wonder. Bad patents are everywhere: covering obvious inventions like the crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich, ridiculous...

Why do we regulate banks? Concerns that are used to justify government intervention can be addressed privately.(Banking & Finance)
December 22, 2005... WE ARE SO INURED TO BANK regulation that we seldom stop to ask why we do it. Yet, when one looks deeply into the question, it is difficult to identify a sound policy reason for regulating banks. Most of the conventional explanations--inherent...

Protection for whom? efficient liquidation benefits creditors as a group.(Bankruptcy Law)
December 22, 2005... WHY DOES BANKRUPTCY LAW exist? Whenever a law is set in place, we as citizens give up some of our freedoms and bind ourselves to actions that we might not otherwise choose. We do so willingly (at least in a collective sense) because we perceive...

The perverse effects of predatory pricing law: even if predation is possible, does intense price competition harm consumers?(oil pricing)
December 22, 2005... THE THEORY OF PREDATORY PRICING IS as old as the Sherman Act. Among the evils attributed to John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil was underpricing rivals to maintain a monopoly in oil production. In the early years of the Sherman Act, courts...

Before Kelo: federal grants encourage excessive use of eminent domain.(Poletown project )
December 22, 2005... IN ITS 2005 DECISION IN THE CASE KELO V. NEW London, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Connecticut city's use of eminent domain to take private property for local economic development. The ruling has created considerable backlash, with many...

Quack Corporate Governance: Sarbanes-Oxley may have satisfied a political need, but it will do little to protect investors or strengthen the market.(CORPORATE GOVERNANCE)
December 22, 2005... THE SARBANES-OXLEY ACT OF 2002 (SOX), in which Congress introduced a series of corporate governance initiatives into the federal securities laws, is not just a considerable change in law, but also a departure in the mode of regulation. The...

Can fee disclosure be trusted? Does Sarbanes-Oxley's disclosures produce useful information?(CORPORATE GOVERNANCE)
December 22, 2005... IN AN EFFORT TO IMPROVE THE TRANSPARENCY of the client-auditor relationship, the Securities and Exchange Commission since 2001 has required firms to disclose the fees they pay to their external auditors for audit and non-audit services. The...

Corporations as suppliers of public goods?(book)(Book Review)
December 22, 2005... THE MARKET FOR VIRTUE: THE POTENTIAL AND LIMITS OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY By David Vogel 173 pages; Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2005 DAVID VOGEL, A political scientist and professor of business ethics at the...

Treating the unserious seriously.(book)(In the Defense of the Economic Analysis of Regulation)(Book Review)
December 22, 2005... IN THE DEFENSE OF THE ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF REGULATION By Robert Hahn 128 pages; Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 2005 ESTIMATING THE VALUE OF a statistical life (VSL) has become an industry unto itself. Hundreds of studies have been done using...

Challenging the lawyer cartel.(book)(Access to Justice)(Book Review)
December 22, 2005... ACCESS TO JUSTICE by Deborah L. Rhode 252 pages, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004 SEVERAL YEARS AGO, AFTER having published an article that was critical of Michigan's statute against the unauthorized practice of law, I heard from...

Second thoughts?(Bush administration)
December 22, 2005... WE ALL HAVE OUR FANTASY WORLDS. Mine involves dinner with Winston Churchill and seas made of milk chocolate. But what if my dreams came true and it turned out that Churchill chews with his mouth open and chocolate oceans make for lousy shipping...