CRADLE's open-access paper series covers various fields of law and economics, with an emphasis on international development and governance, digital technology, and behavioral economics.
Priority Topics
Law and economics of international development and governance invites papers on new laws, charters, and conventions needed for a globalized world. As nations are increasingly linked through trade, capital and labor flows, and supply chains across multiple national boundaries, we need to think creatively about laws for this new world.
Law and economics of digital technology invites tech-related submissions, including antitrust law, intellectual property, intermediary liability, content moderation, privacy, cybercrimes, and regulation of blockchains and AI, as laws and regulations influence the new digital economy.
Behavioral economics and the law invites papers focusing on research in this newer field of economics that draws on psychological research to understand how norms impact economic development and growth and the need to be sensitive to these if we want our laws to be fair and effective.
This paper deals with a complex problem, that of aggregating conditionally independent signals to reach a final opinion. The authors show how people have a propensity not to realize that two weak positive signals of a rare event can constitute strong evidence for the event having occurred. This seemingly abstract problem spills over, in important ways, into the court room and has implications for decisions taken by judges and jury.
This paper studies the self-control problem of a morally committed bureaucrat in choosing the optimal level of discretion. They show a novel tradeoff in the official’s moral commitment: more discretion allows the official to lower red-tape which is socially beneficial, but it also makes bribery more tempting.
In this paper, the authors argue that Section 512(c) notice-and-takedown regime provides a natural setting to study the signaling aspect of pretrial bargaining. A strong signal is short, easy to read, and more specific. Interestingly, how the lawyers draft a notice may compromise the settlement effect of legal representation. Lawyers prefer long sentences, big words, and more terminology, whereas an effective notice is much more concise.
This paper is an attempt to demystify Keynes and give concrete shape to some expressions that Keynes used when writing about investment and capital without adequate explanation. The paper brings together positive axioms and normative imperatives under a unifying conceptual umbrella, referred to as a “Capital Commons” model. The model suggests a pathway to socialize investment while being attentive to private sector and public sector advantages.
Christophe Bravard, Jacques Durieu, Sudipta Sarangi, and Corinne Touati
This paper explores the competition between a designer who shapes interaction patterns and influences agents and an adversary who counters this influence. The influenced agents who are embedded in a network take into account the actions of the designer and the adversary, as well as the opinions of their neighbors, before casting their vote. The paper shows that optimal strategies depend on costs incurred by the players, influence technology advantage, and network structures.
How does law change society? In the rational actor model, law affects behavior only by changing incentives and information—the command and coordination function of law. Under the view that humans are social animals, law is also a guidepost for social norms that regulate behavior—the expressive function of law.
This paper discusses the “global economy of anger” and the “great discordance” that has been the collateral offshoot of technological progress and globalization. It shows that what is often overlooked is that these “advances” have been slowly eroding the foundations of global democracy, enabling political leaders in big and powerful countries to take actions that have no legitimacy or legal basis and are sanctioned by none other than themselves, which is anathema to the very idea of democracy.
This paper is an overview of the history of, and future prospects for, undesirable levels of price inflation in the U.S. economy. The paper concludes that concerns raised in 2021 by several well-known economists and analysts – regarding the prospects for accelerating levels of inflation as a result of pandemic-era and post-pandemic fiscal and monetary policy (enacted and proposed) – is misplaced.
Editorial Advisory Board: Aviv Caspi, Lili Yan Ing, Ajit Mishra, Ory Okolloh, Sudipta Sarangi, Edward Stiglitz, Josh Teitelbaum, Tea Trumbic
Submitted papers undergo a brief review process and post upon acceptance. Authors retain the right to publish the paper in a journal or book. To foster diversity and inclusion within our intellectual community, we are particularly interested in receiving submissions from developing nations, including Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
