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.

/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

The Invention of an Efficiency-Based Price Test as the Standard for Evaluating Mergers under Section 7 of the Clayton Act

No-poach Agreements: An Overview of EU and National Case Law

When a federal regulatory agency issues a major regulation, the agency usually must provide an analysis of the anticipated costs and monetized benefits. Yet there is a large category of regulations that has escaped such scrutiny: so-called "transfer" regulations that determine how money and other benefits are distributed to statutory beneficiaries. This is unfortunate because cost-effectiveness analysis can offer insight into whether the programs are having the desired effect and whether they can be improved.

Evaluating Transfer Regulations

/pdf/a-theor-y-of-customary-international-law-1m9pyom0yh.pdf

Eric A. Posner

Papers

The Invention of an Efficiency-Based Price Test as the Standard for Evaluating Mergers under Section 7 of the Clayton Act

No-poach Agreements: An Overview of EU and National Case Law

Evaluating Transfer Regulations

A Theor y of Customary International Law

Enforcement of U.S. Antitrust Law in Labor Markets