Blog Posts on law and economics

The economics of bus accidents and traffic by FOO Law and Economics on Sep 28, 2010Here comes a proposal to change the way bus drivers, especially on EDSA, are paid.  Supposedly, if they were on fixed salary, drivers would behave better and cause fewer accidents and traffic jams. The incentives to drive recklessly in search of a...

Hacienda Luisita and the wisdom of King Solomon by FOO Law and Economics on Aug 15, 2010Land reform has become an exercise of “fair division,” a state of affairs exemplified when two children are given a cake to share, and the parent has to decide what the fair portions are. The academic solution is well settled.  Let one child div...

How to protect votes in 2010 by FOO Law and Economics on Jan 5, 2010Something lawyers do is “to protect” the votes of their clients. One wag said that the thing to do is to “stare at” the pc used for automated polls to make sure it is “honest.”  Staring seems to be effective and p...

The Business Economics Major For students Today by where everything is for free on Sep 13, 2009According to a 2002 national association of Business Economics survey, 18.5% of the economics grads work for the government, 16% work for personal consulting firms, 11.5% work in academia, 11.2% work for finance establishments and the remaining 42.8%...

Taxing the text message – the view from the telecom trenches by FOO Law and Economics on Sep 10, 2009The proposed tax on text messages The lower House has proposed a 5-centavo tax on text messages.  The reaction from the two largest telecoms is to oppose on two grounds.  One is based on the fact that the actual price of a text varies, and they thr...

Soon even the poor will buy drugs on the web by FOO Law and Economics on Sep 1, 2009Pharmaceuticals can no longer sell cheap in India and dear in the Philippines. This seems to be the import of the 2009 case of Roma Drug v RTC, which one legal analyst believes is a case that helps to “break up cartels.” As I’ve to...

The Clinton message and the luck factor by FOO Law and Economics on Jun 25, 2009Earlier, I tried to assess the economic literacy of politicians on the assumption that it matters. Here comes now some evidence that luck also matters.  In other words, a contender associated with a bad or deteriorating economy loses. Sounds like N...

What exactly is an “Institution”? by FOO Law and Economics on Jun 24, 2009

What exactly is an “institution”? by FOO Law and Economics on Jun 24, 2009

The Clinton message for 2010: “It’s the Economy, Stupid” by FOO Law and Economics on Jun 23, 2009Supposedly, Bill Clinton is said to have won the American presidency in 1992 by staying “on message,” which was that his opponent, the elder Bush, had allowed the U.S. economy to fall into recession the year before.  The underlying theory is th...