Author Archive | Todd Zywicki

Sitting FTC Commissioner Edith Ramirez has been named the Chair of the FTC. For those who are not aware of the FTC’s operating structure, one must be Senate confirmed to a seat as a Commissioner but the President simply designates the Chair with no Senate confirmation.  So for a sitting Commissioner no further confirmation vote […]

Yep, Josh Blackman has created a FantasyPope game.  Make your predictions.  To the winner goes… eternal salvation?

Jody Bottum has a particularly interesting essay assessing Pope Benedict’s term.  I have little to add as a formal or institutional to much of the chatter assessing Benedict’s record, the various scandals that occurred or emerged on his watch, or why or if he should have resigned. I just want to add two very simple […]

The Federalist Society has converted the teleforum on Noel Canning in which I participated last week into a podcast.  With respect to CFPB one other option I didn’t fully contemplate at that time was that the now-“headless” agency might revert back to its initial status of the Secretary of Treasury providing oversight of the agency, […]

I’ll be doing a Federalist Society teleforum today on my recent essay “Policy-Based Evidence-Making at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” today at 2 p.m.  If you are interested in participating the number is 888-752-3232. The essay is here.

I have a new paper at SSRN on “The Economics and Regulation of Network Branded Prepaid Cards,” a fascinating and rapidly-emerging area of the consumer payments economy.  One interesting factor is that, by pushing people out of bank accounts, the Durbin Amending is one of the leading causes of the growth of this market while […]

I have a new post over at the Law and Liberty Blog, “Policy-Based Evidence-Making at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” where I examine the CFPB’s use of economic studies in its new ability to pay and “qualified mortgages” rules.  One cornerstone of the CFPB’s claim that it should be exempt from standard oversight controls by […]

The WSJ reports today that many colleges and universities are dialing back the maximum hours that adjunct professors can teach to drop them under the 30 hours per week trigger of Obamacare, above which the employer would be required to provide health insurance or pay a penalty. The federal health-care overhaul is prompting some colleges […]

I have a column at the Manhattan Institute’s Minding the Campus this morning (“A Bit of Sarbanes-Oxley for Universities, Please“) commenting on Benjamin Ginsberg’s proposal to apply Sarbanes-Oxley to universities.

Lawrence Velvel, Dean of Massachusetts School of Law, reviews Brian Tamanaha’s book on “Failing Law School” at Minding the Campus.

The American Bankruptcy Institute has assembled a commission on the reform of Chapter 11 (I’ve participated on the very far periphery on a working group on one issue).  For those who are interested, Bob Price has an overview the ABI’s process and what it seeks to accomplish here.

As one who travels a lot in competition policy circles, I’m familiar with many of the criticisms of the modern intellectual property system.  So I’ve always enjoyed and benefited from my colleague Adam Mossoff and his critiques of those criticisms.  He has a piece up at Forbes.com that is a nice summary of his approach […]

I’ve written a longish book review of David Skeel’s new book on Dodd-Frank ,”The New Financial Deal,” for my friends at the Law and Liberty blog.

The George Mason Law and Economics Center has announced that it is adding a second section of its summer program on Economics for Law Professors.  The first section was limited to 30 participants and was oversubscribed and so a second section is being added that will run concurrently with the first.  The program will run […]

Josh Blackman, Miriam A. Cherry and Tom W. Bell claim that it violates the First Amendment.