As local utility regulation enacted early this century proved inadequate to deal with complex concerns, Congress passed statutes formulating a national energy policy. Under the resulting programs of concurrent state and federal regulation, competing authorities sometimes clashed. In the context...

American telecommunications law as regulatory phoenix appears to smolder in repeating cycles of reform, only to rise again from its ashes. From the heyday of public utility law's regulatory compact, through "mid-life" phases oj crisis and reform, to the mix of triumph and letdown that is the...

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 promised the world. It has would "promote competition and reduce regulation," "secure lower prices and bigher quality services... and encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies." On its first occasion to review the Act's provisions on...

Environmental economics provides an especially rich source of insights into the impact of emotion, cognitive bias, and behavioral heuristics on risk assessment and management. In contrast with the ambivalent reception of behavioral psychology within mathematical finance, the impact of emotion...

Economic analysis of technological innovation, diffusion, and decline often proceeds according to sigmoid (S-shaped) models, either directly or as a component in more elaborate mathematical representations of the creative process. Three distinct aspects of American innovation policy —...

Climate change is driving the anthropocene extinction, the sixth great extinction spasm of the Phanerozoic Eon. Large-scale habitat destruction puts many plant and animal species at risk of extinction. This essay describes the use of the Endangered Species Act to protect biodiversity from the...

Like many of their counterparts in university teaching, law professors routinely rely on all-or-nothing final examinations. But all-or-nothing final exams put enormous pressure on students, who often labor for months with no meaningful feedback on their mastery of the material. One alternative...

The interplay between law and political economy dictates much of the wealth of nations. This article describes the clash between the two dominant models of economic development: fugitive and agrarian. In the agrarian model, growth is closely correlated with levels of investment in physical and...

William Jennings Bryan dominated American politics at large for nearly three decades. Thrice he sought the presidency. Thrice he lost. Perhaps no other American politician has had greater influence by losing. The publication of Michael Kazin's biography, A Godly Hero: The Life of William...

American agricultural law's environmental record is a legacy of legislative failure. Most of the blame can and should be attributed to the failure of the law to separate ecological objectives from competing and ultimately contradictory economic objectives. Two strains of agroecological fallacies...