Search

Politicians are not neutral maximizers of the public good, they respond to incentives just like other individuals. We apply the same reasoning to those politicians in robes called judges. We argue that elected judges, particularly partisan elected judges, have an incentive to redistribute wealth from out of state defendants (non voters) to instate plaintiffs (voters). The partisan electoral hypothesis is tested first using data on 75,000 tort awards from across the states. We control for differences in injuries, state incomes, poverty levels, selection effects and other factors that may cause awards to differ across the states. One difference which appears difficult to control for is that each state has its own body of tort law. We take advantage of a peculiar aspect of American Federalism to make this distinction. In cases involving citizens of different states, aptly called diversity of citizenship cases, Federal judges apply state law to decide disputes. Diversity of citizenship cases allow us to test whether differences in awards are caused by differences in electoral systems or differences In state law. The evidence from the cross state regressions and from the diversity of citizenship cases, strongly supports the partisan election hypothesis. In cases involving out of state defendants and in state plaintiffs the average award (conditional on winning) is 42% higher in partisan than in non partisan states; approximately 2/3 rds of the larger award is due to a bias against out of state defendants and the remainder due to generally higher awards against businesses in partisan states.

Due to the enormous economic, health, and social costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are high expected social returns to investing in parallel in multiple approaches to accelerating vaccination. We argue there are high expected social returns to investigating the scope for lowering the dosage of some COVID-19 vaccines. While existing evidence is not dispositive, available clinical data on the immunogenicity of lower doses combined with evidence of a high correlation between neutralizing antibody response and vaccine efficacy suggests that half or even quarter doses of some vaccines could generate high levels of protection, particularly against severe disease and death, while potentially expanding supply by 450 million to 1.55 billion doses per month, based on supply projections for 2021. An epidemiological model suggests that, even if fractional doses are less effective than standard doses, vaccinating more people faster could substantially reduce total infections and deaths. The costs of further testing alternative doses are much lower than the expected public health and economic benefits. However, commercial incentives to generate evidence on fractional dosing are weak, suggesting that testing may not occur without public investment. Governments could support either experimental or observational evaluations of fractional dosing, for either primary or booster shots. Discussions with researchers and government officials in multiple countries where vaccines are scarce suggests strong interest in these approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 25 years, the total number of students in college has increased by about 50 percent. But the number of students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects has remained more or less constant. In 2009 the United States graduated 89,140 students in the visual and performing arts, more than in computer science, math, and chemical engineering combined and more than double the number of visual-and-performing-arts graduates in 1985. There is nothing wrong with the arts, psychology, and journalism, but graduates in these fields have lower wages and are less likely to find work in their fields than graduates in science and math. Moreover, more than half of all humanities graduates end up in jobs that don't require college degrees, and those graduates don't get a big income boost from having gone to college. Most important, graduates in the arts, psychology, and journalism are less likely to create the kinds of innovations that drive economic growth. Economic growth is not the only goal of higher education, but it is one of the main reasons taxpayers subsidize higher education through direct government college support, as well as loans, scholarships, and grants. The potential wage gains for college graduates is reason enough for students to pursue a college education. The obsessive focus on a college degree has served neither taxpayers nor students well. Only 35 percent of students starting a four-year degree program will graduate within four years, and less than 60 percent will graduate within six years. Students who haven't graduated within six years probably never will. The U.S. college dropout rate is about 40 percent, the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world. That's a lot of wasted resources. Students with two years of college education may get something for those two years, but it's less than half of the wage gains from completing a four-year degree. No degree, few skills, and a lot of debt is not an ideal way to begin a career. A big part of the problem is that the United States has paved a single road to knowledge, the road through the classroom. Lots of students, however, crash before they reach the end of the road. Who can blame them? Sit-down learning is not for everyone, perhaps not even for most people. There are many roads to an education. Going to college is neither necessary nor sufficient to be well educated. Apprentices in Europe are well educated but not college schooled. The author contends the need to open more roads to education so that more students can reach their desired destination.

Drug Price Controls. A 'Cure' Worse Than the Disease Earlier this year, the State of Maine passed a law to try to force down drug prices. If drug manufacturers and [...]

James M. Buchanan led the revolution that dethroned the benevolent dictator assumption. Revolutions, however, are rarely the product of ideas alone. They take planning, strategy, funding, and a cadre of like-minded individuals who attract others to the cause. In leading the revolution, Buchanan had to be more than a scholar; he also had to be an intellectual entrepreneur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]