Executive Power and the People: Does the President Care What You Think?

I sought to examine the relationship between public approval of the president and his subsequent behavior. Specifically, I looked at the relationship between public approval and signing statement usage along with their usage following the 2006 outcry against President Bush's use of them.

A Note on Optimal Care by Wealth-Constrained Injurers

This paper clarifies the relationship between an injurer's wealth level and his care choice by highlighting the distinction between monetary and non-monetary care. When care is non-monetary, wealth-constrained injurers generally take less than optimal care, and care is increasing in their wealth level under both strict liability and negligence. In contrast, when care is monetary, injurers may take too much or too little care under strict liability, and care is not strictly increasing in injurer wealth. Under negligence, the relationship between injurer care and wealth is similar in the two formulations. However, when litigation costs are added to the model, the relationship between injurer care and wealth becomes non-monotonic under both liability rules.

A Note on the Social versus Private Value of Suits when Care is Bilateral

This paper re-examines the social versus private value of lawsuits when both injurers and victims can take care. The basic conclusions of that literature remain valid in this context: the private and social values generally differ, and there is no necessary relationship between them, meaning that there may be either too many or too few suits. Introducing the possibility of victim care does, however, alter the calculation of the deterrent effect of lawsuits. In particular, because allowing suits tends to reduce the incentives for victims to invest in precaution, the social value of prohibiting suits increases in direct relation to the productivity of victim care in lowering accident risk.