Despite decades of research on mechanism design and on many practical aspects of cost-benefit analysis, one of the most basic and ubiquitous features of regulation as actually implemented throughout the world has received little theoretical attention: exemptions for small firms. These firms may...

In many settings, there are preliminary or interim decision points at which legal cases may be terminated: e.g., motions to dismiss and for summary judgment in U.S. civil litigation, grand jury decisions in criminal cases, and agencies' screening and other exercises of discretion in pursuing...

A recent wave of literature, partly motivated by presidential campaign tax reform plans, analyzes tax expenditure limitation proposals. These reforms are often advanced not only, or even primarily, because they reduce distortions caused by favoritism for some types of expenditures over others....

Market definition and market power are central features of competition law and practice but pose serious challenges. On one hand, market definition suffers decisive logical infirmities that render it infeasible, unnecessary, and counterproductive, and the practice of stating market power...

A central justification for social insurance and for other policies aimed at retirement savings is that individuals may fail to make adequate provision during their working years. Much research has focused on myopia and other behavioral limitations. Yet little attention has been devoted to how...

Specialized theoretical and empirical research should in principle be embedded in a unified framework that identifies the relevant interactions among different phenomena, enables an appropriate matching of policy instruments to objectives, and grounds normative analysis in individuals' utilities...

The burden of proof is a central feature of adjudication, and analogues exist in many other settings. It constitutes an important but largely unappreciated policy instrument that interacts with the level of enforcement effort and magnitude of sanctions in controlling harmful activity. Models are...

A notable feature and principal virtue of Tax by Design is its system-wide perspective on different elements of the tax system. This review essay builds on this trait and offers a more explicit foundation for the report's general approach, drawing on a distribution-neutral methodology that is...