Daniel B. Rodriguez

Making Talk Cheap (and Problems Easy): How Legal and Political Institutions Can Facilitate Consensus

In many legal, political, and social settings, people must reach a consensus before particular outcomes can be achieved and failing to reach a consensus may be costly. In this article, we present a theory and conduct experiments that take into account the costs associated with communicating, as well as the difficulty of the decisions that groups make. We find that when there is even a small cost (relative to the potential benefit) associated with sending information to others and/or listening, groups are much less likely to reach a consensus, primarily because they are less willing to communicate with one another. We also find that difficult problems significantly reduce group members’ willingness to communicate with one another and, therefore, hinder their ability to reach a consensus.

Municipal Home Rule and the Processes of Intrastate Fiscal Competition

This paper gives a brief, general overview of the doctrine of municipal home rule and its relationship to fiscal decisionmaking within state governments. The basic claim is that state and local governments compete against one another for fiscal control and authority. States naturally have a substantial leg up in this fiscal competition; moreover, state government manages local fiscal authority through an admixture of constraints, incentives, and resources. On the other hand, the developing doctrine of municipal home rule provides an unsteady shield from state control. Of course, the viability of this sheild rests on interpretive judgments of central decisionmakers, often state judges. While this survey offers no comprehensive theory of how to mediate the tension between state and local governments, it highlights the way in which state constitutional law can accomplish the aim of regulating the processes of intrastate fiscal competition. More careful empirical analysis is essential to unpack the particular contours of this competition for control; and more nuanced prescriptive analysis is necessary to establish rules, procedures, and institutions with which to improve state and local fiscal decisionmaking.

The Role of Legal Innovation in Ecosystem Management: Perspectives from American Local Government Law

Introduction .................................................... 745 I. Ecosystems and Institutions ............................. 747 A. Ecosystem Management and the Traditions of LandU se Regulation ..................................... 747 B. Structures and Incentives in Institutional Innovation .......................................... 752 II. The Role of Local Government Law in Ecosystem M anagem ent ............................................ 755 A. Municipal Organization Law ........................ 755 B. Inter-Local Institutional Innovation ................. 759 C. Local Fiscal Initiatives .............................. 763 D. Rethinking Preemption Doctrine ................... 766 E. Recapitulation ...................................... 767 C onclusion ..................................................... 768