Scholars traditionally conceptualize private law around a commitment to the values of formal freedom and equality. Critics of the traditional view (including lawyer-economists) dispute the significance of a distinction between public and private law, construing private law as merely one form of public regulation. Both positions are flawed. The traditional position is conceptually misguided and normatively disappointing; the critical position...
No. 6
Bankruptcy judges consider both value to creditors and harm to employees in deciding whether to liquidate or reorganize firms. This Article proposes to systematize what is currently an ad hoc trade-off by making bankruptcy law explicitly counter-cyclical—that is, placing more weight on preserving employment during times of high unemployment. Although the suggestion that bankruptcy law should consider employment effects runs counter to decades...
Each state offers a property tax exemption to qualifying charitable organizations. Municipalities both administer these charitable exemptions and bear their economic cost. This creates an incentive for municipalities to adopt an interpretation of their state’s exemption framework that limits the exemption’s scope and preserves tax revenue. This Note focuses on community economic development (CED) organizations to explore how overly narrowed...