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.

/pdf/antisocial-punishment-across-societies-45ue2he7yk.pdf

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.

/pdf/the-value-of-a-statistical-life-a-critical-review-of-market-4vq0tnp3xu.pdf

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

Book Review (reviewing Jody S. Kraus & Steven D. Walt, eds., The Jurisprudential Foundations of Corporate and Commercial Law (2000))

/pdf/the-new-chicago-school-myth-or-reality-33w4d1tbyr.pdf

The New Chicago School: Myth or Reality?

Several recent studies have found a positive, statistically significant correlation between ratification of human rights treaties and respect for human rights. Some commentators have interpreted these results as evidence of the causal effect of international human rights law on human rights outcomes. We revisit this debate and present evidence that for two treaties — the Convention on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention Against Torture — these results disappear once time trends are taken into account. Our evidence suggests that recent improvements in human rights are attributable to long running trends that pre-date the emergence of the relevant treaty regimes.

/pdf/treaties-and-human-rights-the-role-of-long-term-trends-22avffcih1.pdf

Treaties and Human Rights: The Role of Long-Term Trends

The Statutory Framework

Immigration law both screens migrants and regulates the behavior of migrants after they have arrived. Both activities are information intensive because the migrant’s “type” and the migrant’s post-arrival activity are often forms of private information that are not immediately accessible to government agents. To overcome this information problem, the national government can delegate the screening and regulating functions. American immigration law, for example, delegates extensive authority to both private entities— paradigmatically, employers and families—and to the fifty states. From the government’s perspective, delegation carries with it benefits and costs. On the benefit side, agents frequently have easy access to information about the types and activities of migrants and can cheaply monitor and control them. On the cost side, agents’ preferences are not always aligned with those of the national government. The national government can ameliorate these costs by giving agents incentives to act consistently with the government’s interests. Understanding these virtues and vices of delegation sheds light on longstanding debates about the roles that employers, families, and states play in American immigration law.

https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5696&context=uclrev

Eric A. Posner

Papers

Book Review (reviewing Jody S. Kraus & Steven D. Walt, eds., The Jurisprudential Foundations of Corporate and Commercial Law (2000))

The New Chicago School: Myth or Reality?

Treaties and Human Rights: The Role of Long-Term Trends

The Statutory Framework

Delegation in Immigration Law