Steven P. Croley

WTO Dispute Procedures, Standard of Review, and Deference to National Governments

Increasing international economic interdependence is obviously becoming a growing challenge to governments, which are frustrated by their limited capacities to regulate or control cross-border economic activities. Many subjects trigger this frustration, including interest rates, various fraudulent or criminal activities, product standards, consumer protection, environmental issues and prudential concerns for financial services. Although it has been said that “all politics is local,” it has also been said, with considerable justification, that “all economics is international.”

THE NONPECUNIARY COSTS OF ACCIDENTS: PAIN-AND-SUFFERING DAMAGES IN TORT LAW

Conventional wisdom holds that tort awards for nonpecuniary losses are undesirable from an insurance standpoint. Professors Croley and Hanson challenge this wisdom. After providing a critique of several reform proposals predicated on that wisdom and explaining why rational consumers might well demand insurance against nonpecuniary losses, they argue that the empirical evidence upon which the conventional wisdom is largely based is more complicated than previously recognized. In particular, several market impediments seriously limit the extent to which inferences about consumer demand can be drawn from looking solely to first-party insurance markets. With those impediments in mind, however, one can see more clearly the modest market evidence of such demand. Moreover, certain nonmarket evidence further suggests that consumers may demand insurance against nonpecuniary losses, though the markets ability to answer that demand is limited. The tort system, in contrast, has several advantages that may render it a superior institution for providing nonpecuniary-loss insurance.

The Majoritarian Difficulty: Elective Judiciaries and the Rule of Law

Introduction .................................... 690 I. Judicial Constitutional Democracy and the Countermajoritarian Difficulty ................... 700 A. Two Principles of Constitutional Democracy ...... 701 1. Democracy ............................ 702 2. Constitutionalism ....................... 703 B. Judicial Constitutional Democracy ............. 706 1. Judicial independence .................... 708 2. Judicial accountability ................... 709 C. Judicial Independence and the Countermajoritarian Difficulty ................................. 711 II. The Majoritarian Difficulty ...................... 713 A. Elective Judiciaries ......................... 714 1. The emergence of the institution ............ 714 2. Elective judiciaries today ................. 725 B. The Dangers of Elective Judiciaries ............ 726 1. Compromised protection of constitutional rights 727 2. Biased administration of day-to-day justice .... 728 C. The Significance of the Majoritarian Difficulty .... 729 1. Low-salience and high-salience judicial elections 730 2. The invidious consequences of electoral pressures on elected judges ................ 740

Interest Groups and Public Choice

Public choice theory sheds light on many aspects of legislation, regulation, and constitutional law and is critical to a sophisticated understanding of public policy. The editors of this landmark addition to the law and economics literature have organized the Handbook into four main areas of inquiry: foundations, constitutional law and democracy, administrative design and action, and specific statutory schemes. The original contributions, authored by top scholars in the field, provide helpful introductions to important topics in public choice and public law while also exploring the institutional complexity of American democracy.

Making Rules: An Introduction

Review: Making Rules: An Introduction Author(s): Steven Croley Reviewed work(s): Rulemaking: How Government Agencies Write Law and Make Policy by Cornelius M. Kerwin Source: Michigan Law Review, Vol. 93, No. 6, 1995 Survey of Books Relating to the Law, (May, 1995), pp. 1511-1538 Published by: The Michigan Law Review Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1289891 Accessed: 01/07/2008 14:54

Review Essay : Imperfect Information and the Electoral Connection

By exploring the consequences of imperfect information, R. Douglas Arnold and John Mark Hansen (both intellectual descendants of David Mayhew) make significant contributions to the rational-choice theory of legislator decision-making. Indeed, their books can be usefully understood as the latest stage in the evolution of that theory. Ultimately, however, their contributions to the theory are incomplete. While Arnold and Hansen both highlight an insufficiently emphasized issue, their particular arguments concerning the implications of imperfect information leave unanswered several important questions.