Author Archive | Todd Zywicki

I’ll be speaking to the University of Kentucky Federalist Society Student Chapter tomorrow on the mortgage crisis, tomorrow, Wednesday April 14 at noon.  Professor Chris Frost will be providing commentary.

Erin Sheley has a summary of the recent conference honoring the work of Bill Stuntz.

Cato Unbound has an ongoing discussion on behavioral economics and regulatory policy this month, featuring Glen Whitman, Richard Thaler, and Jonathan Klick (with one more to come by Shane Frederick).  The forum is here. Glen’s basic critique is one that I’ve wondered about as well, which is the paternalistic slippery slope.  In particular, if regulators […]

Interesting article by Andrew Ferguson on the influence of behavioral economics on Obama Administration regulatory policy here.  Clever title too.

Dartmouth’s election for trustee and Executive Committee of the Association of Alumni concludes on April 7.  I voted for Joe Asch and explained my reasons for doing so here.  His website is here.  I also voted for the petition slate in the Executive Committee election headed by Michael Murphy.  Their website is here.  If you […]

Winner of the Third VC March Madness competition.  Although David picked Ohio State to win the championship, he did pick Duke for the final and that apparently was enough.  David took a huge lead around the time of the Sweet 16 and held on.  To his credit, he nailed Cornell in the Sweet 16.  Given […]

Ilya notes the standing and ripeness issues in the health care suits.  A few weeks ago, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli spoke at GMU law school (following a now-established tradition of having newly-minted AG’s speak at the law school).  I asked him exactly these questions about Standing and Ripeness. With respect to standing, AG Cuccinelli […]

First Things is having a “Tournament of Novels.”  Vote here.  I just learned about it and so missed voting in the first round but just cast my vote in the second round.  Some of the match-ups were very clever, such as Lord of the Rings versus Atlas Shrugged in the first round. (HT: Mere Comments). […]

I love lists and I love books, so how can I not chime in with my Top 10 most influential books: 1.  F.A. Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Volume 1, “Rules and Order”: The most thorough development of the idea of spontaneous order, which in my view is the single most important idea in social […]

Full analysis of the impacts of Obama Care will take more systematic econometric analysis, but the early returns suggest that Obama Care is good for health insurance providers and pharmaceutical companies but bad for US Treasuries.  Both sides of the ledger seem like what I would have predicted.

On Friday, the Ninth Circuit handed down its decision in Marshall v. Stern (formerly Marshall v. Marshall).  The Court held–correctly in my view–that the Bankruptcy Court’s decision in Anna Nicole Smith’s (formerly Vickie Lynn Marshall, whose estate is now administered by Executor Howard K. Stern) bankruptcy case that gave Smith half of Marshall’s estate (later […]

In a recent commentary at Forbes.com, former Clinton administration economist Robert Shapiro argues that some 250,000 jobs would be created, and consumers would save $27 billion annually, by reducing the interchange fee charged to merchants for transactions made by consumers using credit and debit cards.  If true, these are some incredible numbers. But incredible is […]

In case you missed it yesterday, we’re doing another VC March Madness Tournament this year.  Brackets lock at tip-off of today’s first game. The bracket is available on cbssportsline (so you have to register if you haven’t already): http://volcon.mayhem.cbssports.com/e The password is “Volokh” (be sure to capitalize the V).  One bracket per person, please. Note […]

Back again for the third annual VC March Madness Tournament. The bracket is available on cbssportsline (so you have to register if you haven’t already): http://volcon.mayhem.cbssports.com/e The password is “Volokh” (be sure to capitalize the V).  One bracket per person, please. Note that I’ve configured the rules to multiply the points for the round by […]

John Yoo and Richard Epstein discuss and debate a variety of issues on a new Ricochet podcast (they are podcast episode number 7, Midnight Blue). Check out some of the others while you are there–Rob Long, Peter Robinson, and Mark Steyn are the three hosts.