Why does capitalism triumph in the West but fail almost everywhere else? Elegantly, and with rare clarity, Hernando de Soto revolutionizes our understanding of what capital is and why it has failed to benefit four-fifths of mankind -- and explains the solution. 'A revolutionary book ...may not be in the class of Das Kapital, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations or Keynes's General Theory. But if the criteria for joining that exclusive club is a capacity not only to change permanently the way we look at the world, but also to change the world itself, then there are good grounds for thinking that this book is surely a contender.' Donald Macintyre, The Independent 'Few people in Britain have heard of Hernando de Soto ...but The Mystery of Capital has already led the cognoscenti to put him in the pantheon of great progressive intellectuals of our age.' Mark Leonard, New Statesman 'A crucial contribution. A new proposal for change that is valid for the whole world' - Javier Perez de Cuellar (Former Secretary United Nations)

http://capeyorkpartnership.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/The-Mystery-of-Capital_Hernando-de-Soto-book-review-by-Noel-Pearson.pdf

The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else

In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

Scholars of culture, humanities and social sciences have increasingly come to an appreciation of the importance of the legal domain in social life, while critically engaged socio-legal scholars around the world have taken up the task of understanding "Law's Empire" in all of its cultural, political, and economic dimensions. The questions arising from these intersections, and addressing imperialisms past and present forms the subject matter of a special symposium issue of Social Identities under the editorship of Griffith University's Rob McQueen, and UBC's Wes Pue and with contributions from McQueen, Ian Duncanson, Renisa Mawani, David Williams, Emma Cunliffe, Chidi Oguamanam, W. Wesley Pue, Fatou Camara, and Dianne Kirkby. This paper introduces the volume, forthcoming in late 2007. The central problematique of this issue has previously been explored through the 2005 Law's Empire conference, an informal but vibrant postcolonial legal studies network.

Law's Empire

We document the widespread existence of antisocial punishment, that is, the sanctioning of people who behave prosocially. Our evidence comes from public goods experiments that we conducted in 16 comparable participant pools around the world. However, there is a huge cross-societal variation. Some participant pools punished the high contributors as much as they punished the low contributors, whereas in others people only punished low contributors. In some participant pools, antisocial punishment was strong enough to remove the cooperation-enhancing effect of punishment. We also show that weak norms of civic cooperation and the weakness of the rule of law in a country are significant predictors of antisocial punishment. Our results show that punishment opportunities are socially beneficial only if complemented by strong social norms of cooperation.

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Antisocial Punishment Across Societies

A substantial literature over the past thirty years has evaluated tradeoffs between money and fatality risks. These values in turn serve as estimates of the value of a statistical life. This article reviews more than 60 studies of mortality risk premiums from ten countries and approximately 40 studies that present estimates of injury risk premiums. This critical review examines a variety of econometric issues, the role of unionization in risk premiums, and the effects of age on the value of a statistical life. Our meta-analysis indicates an income elasticity of the value of a statistical life from about 0.5 to 0.6. The paper also presents a detailed discussion of policy applications of these value of a statistical life estimates and related issues, including risk-risk analysis.

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The value of a statistical life: A critical review of market estimates throughout the world

Erga omnes norms are those that give third-party states, rather than just the victim, legal claims against states that violate them. This paper argues that ordinary twoparty norms arise when states recognize that a norm violation injures only one state and that other states that seek to retaliate on that state's behalf are likely using the violation as a pretext for predatory behavior. Erga omnes norms arise when states recognize that a norm violation injures multiple states and that states have an incentive to free ride rather than retaliate against the violator.

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Erga Omnes Norms, Institutionalization, and Constitutionalism in International Law

A number of judge-made doctrines attempt to promote international comity by reducing possible tensions between the United States and foreign sovereigns. For example, courts usually interpret ambiguous statutes to conform to international law and understand them not to apply outside of the nation’s territorial boundaries. The international comity doctrines are best understood as a product of a judicial judgment that in particular contexts the costs of deference to foreign interests are lower than the benefits to American interests. Sometimes Congress balances these considerations and incorporates its judgment in a statute, but usually it does not. In such cases, executive interpretations should be permitted to trump the comity doctrines, as long as those interpretations are reasonable. This conclusion is supported both by considerations of institutional competence and by the distinctive position of the President in the domain of foreign affairs. It follows that if the executive wants to interpret ambiguous statutes to conflict with international law or to apply extraterritorially, it should be permitted to do so. The analysis of the interpretive power of the executive can be justified by reference to the Chevron doctrine in administrative law, which similarly calls for deference to executive interpretation of statutory ambiguities. Sometimes the Chevron doctrine literally applies to executive interpretations; sometimes it operates as a valuable analogy. At the same time, the Chevron principle is qualified by doctrines requiring a clear congressional statement, especially when constitutionally sensitive rights are involved. These claims have many implications for legal issues raised by the war on terror, including those explored in the Hamdi and Hamdan cases. authors. Eric A. Posner is Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law, University of Chicago. Cass R. Sunstein is Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Chicago. Thanks to Curt Bradley, Jacob Gersen, Jack Goldsmith, Anup Malani, Matthew Stephenson, David Strauss, and participants at a workshop at the University of Chicago Law School for helpful comments; to Stacey Nathan for excellent research assistance; and to Derek Jinks and Neal Katyal for their stimulating critique. POSNER_SUNSTEIN_3-09-07_POST-OP 4/16/2007 2:58:44 PM chevronizing foreign relations law 1171 article contents

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Chevronizing Foreign Relations Law

According to entrenched conventional wisdom, the president enjoys considerable advantages over other litigants in the Supreme Court. Because of the central role of the presidency in the U.S. government, and the expertise and experience of the Solicitor General’s office, the president usually wins. However, a new analysis of the data reveals that the conventional wisdom is out of date. The historical dominance of the president in the Supreme Court reached its apex in the Reagan administration, which won nearly 80% of the cases, and has declined steadily since then. In the Obama administration, the presidency suffered its worst win rate, barely 50%. After documenting this trend, we discuss possible explanations. We find evidence that the trend may be due to growing self-assertion of the Court and the development of a specialized private Supreme Court bar. We find no evidence for two other possible explanations — that the trend is due to greater executive overreaching than in the past, or ideological disagreements between the Court and the presidency.

Eric A. Posner

Papers

Erga Omnes Norms, Institutionalization, and Constitutionalism in International Law

Chevronizing Foreign Relations Law

The Decline of Supreme Court Deference to the President

International Law and the Disaggregated State

Last Resort: The Financial Crisis and the Future of Bailouts