Law & Econ Prof Blog

Two Article Worth Reading

The Wall Street Journal for this morning has two articles well worth reading.  The first -- "An Economist's Courtroom Bonanza" -- is about Professor David Teece's career as an expert witness on a wide variety of subjects.  The other -- "Time to Rethink the FBI" -- is by Judge Richard A. Posner and suggests that the FBI is, as currently organized and despite the efforts of the last two directors to change that organization, ill-constituted to further counter-terrorism. 

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Three Great Articles

The March 11 New York Times Magazine has three superb articles: Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, "Identity Crisis" (about identity theft and how to combat it); Richard Panek, "Out There" (about dark energy); and Jeffrey Rosen, "The Brain on the Stand" (about neuroscience and the law). 
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The Economics of Leisure

I highly recommend today's New York Times "Economic Scene" column by Hal Varian, "The Future of Leisure."  Here.  The column reviews recent research by Valerie Ramey of UC-San Diego and Neville Francis of UNC about leisure.  One of the interesting conclusions is that the total amount of leisure available to the average American hasn't changed in 105 years.  You can download the Ramey-Francis article here. 

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Mathematics of Friendship

Today's Chicago Tribune has a brief article -- "The Mathematics of Friendship," available here -- about an article by Brian Rogers of the Kellogg School at Northwestern and Matthew Jackson of Stanford, available here and forthcoming in the American Economic Review, on networks of social relationship. 
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Rankings

The Becker-Posner blog of March 4, available here, has a nice essay by Judge Posner on "The Economics of College and University Rankings." 
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