bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
In Pursuit of Pragmatic Legal Theory
Authors: Waluchow Wil
Published: July 2016

A critical review of Jules Coleman’s The Practice of Principle: In Defence of a Pragmatist Approach to Legal Theory. Coleman’s book has two principal objectives: (1) to defend both Inclusive Legal Positivism and Coleman’s influential views on the role of corrective justice in explaining tort law; and (2) to show how philosophical pragmatism can usefully be employed in defending such views. In this article I both outline and critique the main elements of Coleman's book. I also explore ways in which some of its central arguments could usefully be modified or extended to solve related jurisprudential puzzles.
Equal Opportunity and Gender Disadvantage
Authors: Jacobs Lesley A.
Published: July 2016

Recently, in Canada both the Federal Government and various provincial governments have introduced a series of measures intended to address gender inequalities in the workplace. These measures are of two basic types. Employment equity policies involve the implementation of affirmative action programmes designed to encourage the hiring and promotion of more women in, for example, the civil service. Pay equity policies have sought to institutionalize the principle of equal pay for work of equal value or, to use the American terminology, comparable worth. The aim of this paper is to resurrect the presently out of fashion view that the principles of affirmative action and comparative worth that underlie employment equity and pay equity can be defended on the grounds that they contribute to the realization of an ideal of equality of opportunity between men and women in Canadian society. This view, although once prevalent among those concerned with gender issues, has been pushed aside, largely because of doubts about the visionary depth of the ideal of equality of opportunity. It has been replaced instead by an ideal of equality of results which emphasizes the goal of reducing the gender wage gap. It is my intention here to formulate a principle of equality of opportunity that can incorporate recent feminist legal and political philosophy in a way that offers a promising way to analyze issues posed by gender inequalities in the workplace and, as a result, provide a clear rationale for the recent employment equity and pay equity initiatives in Canada.
Strangers and Members: Equality in an Immigration Setting
Authors: Galloway Donald
Published: July 2016

Immigration Law has as its primary subject the stranger: the outsider who is under no obligation of allegiance to the state, who is not represented in its political processes, and whose needs and interests are, in most situations, accorded less concern than those of people who already participate in the social and political life of a community. The immigrant stranger may, of course, appear in a variety of guises. He may be a wealthy entrepreneur or investor who belongs to another political community but who chooses to emigrate to advance his own or his family’s well-being. Alternatively, the stranger may be a person who has experienced life solely within the confines of a community that is plagued by economic deprivation. Such a person may be crippled by physical and emotional need or cultural fragmentation. His search is for a new social environment in which, it is hoped, these constraints will not be present in such exaggerated or severe measure. Sometimes the needy stranger will be seeking an immediate escape from a political regime which offers her no protection or which aims at her very destruction, and sometimes she will be searching for deliverance from the incessant, limbo-like tedium or the multitude of unspeakable terrors to which one is exposed in a refugee camp. Whatever the guise in which he or she appears, the stranger is someone with whom the modern political state must come to terms. He or she cannot be ignored.
Outing: The Supposed Justifications
Authors: Austen Andrea , Wellington Adrian Alex
Published: July 2016

Outing is conceptually linked to the notion of the “closet”; “coming out of the closet” amounts to publicly acknowledging one’s homosexuality, or at the least one’s participation in sexual activities with persons of the same sex. Outing makes someone’s homosexuality public; they are forced out of the closet, so to speak. Richard Mohr has described it this way: “outing [makes] publicly acknowledged the sexual orientation of a homosexual without regard to whether the person is willing to have this information publicly acknowledged”. Leslie Green provides this definition: “the practice of publicly exposing someone’s presumed sexual orientation, against his or her will, in circumstances where the revelation may be damaging.”
Reflections on a Teach-In Walk-Out
Authors: Marks Susan
Published: July 2016

Karl Marx wrote that ‘the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways’, whereas ‘the point is to change it’. Are international legal scholars exposed to the same charge? Have they too placed theory before the demands of real-world emancipatory practice? The author explores these questions, and shows how Marx’s concerns about the philosophers indeed have resonance in the field of international law. At the same time, however, she observes that the problem is not with theory per se, if by theory is simply meant academic enquiry. Rather, it is with theory of a particular kind. Against this background, she discusses some of the ways in which academic enquiry can be itself a form of emancipatory practice, some of the features of what she refers to as transformative scholarship. In developing her account, she highlights the point that those who seek social transformation need not only to transcend the limitations for which Marx criticised certain kinds of philosophy (‘idealism’). They also need to avoid the antithetical pitfalls for which, much later, Frankfurt School theorist Adorno criticised certain modes of politics (‘actionism’).
International Law’s Literature of Terror
Authors: Morgan Ed
Published: July 2016

It is the theory of this paper that while the natural analytic tendency is to seek the legal character of terror in the impugned act, it can actually be found only by examining the narrative of the law. As a legal concept, terrorism strikes not at the political power of states or at the safety of individual citizens, but at the law's own stability as law.
Intellectual Property: Theory, Privilege, and Pragmatism
Authors: Moore Adam D.
Published: July 2016

In the most general terms, this article focuses on the tension between competing justifications of intellectual property. Section I examines the nature and definition of economic pragmatism and argues that, while economic pragmatism comes in many flavors, each is either unstable or self-defeating. Section II advances the view that Anglo-American systems of intellectual property have both theoretical and pragmatic features. In Section III a sketch of a theory is offered--a theory that may limit applications of economic pragmatism and provide the foundation for copyright, patent, and trade secret institutions. To be justified--to warrant coercion on a worldwide scale--systems of intellectual property should be grounded in theory. Intellectual property rights are, in essence, no different than our rights to life, liberty, and tangible property. Intellectual property rights are neither pure social constructions nor bargains without foundations.
Thomas Hobbes and the Intellectual Origins of Legal Positivism
Authors: Coyle Sean
Published: July 2016

Legal positivism is often described as the view that there is no necessary relationship between law and moral values. Such an understanding of positivism, this essay argues, is both unfruitful and far removed from the concerns of the figure most often associated with the origins of the positivist tradition, Thomas Hobbes. For Hobbes, legal positivism represented a decisive break with the intellectual tradition of common law scholarship which could no longer provide a satisfactory account of political authority. Positivism began, therefore, as an explanation of the basis of law’s authority within wider theories of social order: legal rules came to be seen as possessing authority not as the specific outcomes of broader moral precepts, but because they represent definitive, posited solutions to the problems of collective living. Analytical positivism, by contrast, centres upon the possibility of descriptive neutrality: an essential property of law, it is felt, is that ascertainment of its content does not necessarily depend upon moral assessments of the purpose of value of legal rules. Such an understanding, it is contended, is only very indirectly related to the traditional concerns of the legal philosopher, and hence marginal to a rich and detailed view of law’s nature. This essay traces the developments which led to the narrowly analytical view of legal positivism, and argues that positivism is much better understood as a series of peculiarly potent reflections on the rule of law: Hobbes’s answers to the questions of social order and the authority of law are often highly unsatisfactory; but it is his questions, rather than those of the modern positivists, which are most worth asking, and which should drive the legal philosopher.
Two Perspectives on Legal Theory
Authors: Hendrix Brian Burge
Published: July 2016

This is a Critical Notice of two books: Evaluation and Legal Theory by Julie Dickson and Law as a Social Institution by Hamish Ross, both published by Hart.
Democratic Experimentalism or Capitalist Synchronization? Critical Reflections on Directly-Deliberative Polyarchy
Authors: Scheuerman William E.
Published: July 2016

Contemporary “flexible capitalism” requires novel forms of legal regulation. In this vein, Joshua Cohen, Michael Dorf, Archon Fung, and Charles Sabel have developed a provocative set of proposals for a new mode of regulatory law, what they describe as “democratic experimentalism” or, alternately, “directly deliberative polyarchy.” Their proposal are criticized: they not only fail to take traditional liberal democratic rule of law virtues seriously enough, but it remains unclear whether they can effectively tame and humanize capitalism. Instead, some evidence suggests that their proposals simply amount to a normatively problematic synchronization of the legal system with contemporary high-speed capitalism.
The Inadequacy of our Traditional Conception of the Duties Imposed by Human Rights
Authors: Ashford Elizabeth
Published: July 2016

I argue that our traditional conception of the duties imposed by human rights is unable to acknowledge the nature of many contemporary human rights violations. The traditional conception is based on a broadly deontological view according to which human rights impose primarily negative and perfect duties, and these duties are held to be specific prohibitions on certain kinds of actions (duties not to kill, assault and so on). I argue that given this conception of the nature of the duties imposed by human rights, not only claims to aid, but in addition, claims against many of the most serious and prevalent contemporary active harms will not count as genuine human rights claims. These harms increasingly result from extremely complex causal chains involving the behaviour of a huge number of agents, few or none of whom can be singled out as responsible for a serious harm to any specific victim. Institutional structures can have just as central a role to play in specifying and allocating responsibility for fulfilling many of the negative duties imposed by human rights as the positive duties. These structures can therefore be equally important in the realisation of both kinds of rights. Before the necessary institutional reforms have taken place, both kinds of rights are equally genuine, and ground the imperative of justice to reform existing social institutions.
Property, Corrective Justice, and the Nature of the Cause of Action in Unjust Enrichment
Authors: Botterell Andrew
Published: July 2016

In this paper I reconsider the relation between property and unjust enrichment and respond to a recent argument that actions in unjust enrichment cannot be actions in corrective justice. I suggest that any analysis that regards actions in unjust enrichment as embodying principles of corrective justice requires supplementation by considerations that are, at bottom, proprietary in nature. I argue that there is no incompatibility in viewing actions in unjust enrichment as actions whose grounds are broadly proprietary in nature; that understanding unjust enrichment in this manner does not threaten its theoretical coherence; and that understanding unjust enrichment in this manner allows us to view actions in unjust enrichment as actions in corrective justice.
Necessity and Jury Nullification
Authors: Hreno Travis
Published: July 2016

Jury nullification refers to the behaviour of a jury that votes to acquit a defendant of criminal charges despite believing that: a) the defendant did in fact commit the actions with which she is charged; and, b) such actions are, indeed, prohibited by law. While there are many objections to this practice, the most striking thing about jury nullification is that nothing is done to actually prevent or punish jurors who behave this way. In this paper, I explore three rationales for why jury nullification is an officially tolerated, if not necessarily welcome, element of Anglo-American criminal law jury trials. All three of these rationales centre in one way or another on the idea that the very concept of a jury trial necessitates allowing the jury to extend its traditional purview in such a manner.
Politicians, Judges, and the Charter
Authors: Sumner L.W.
Published: July 2016

The complaint is a familiar one: unelected, politically unaccountable judges are using their powers of judicial review to subvert the democratic process by shaping public policy in accordance with their own personal moral/political views. It is tempting to dismiss this complaint as the grumbling of those, usually (though not invariably) on the political right, who have been disaffected by court decisions with which they personally disagree. But this temptation must be resisted, since the critics of judicial review, such as Jeremy Waldron, raise important issues about the role of judges in a democratic political system. In his recent bookA Common Law Theory of Judicial Review, Wil Waluchow responds to the critics' arguments. This Critical Notice outlines his response and assesses its adequacy.
The Cultural Limits of Legal Tolerance
Authors: Berger Benjamin L.
Published: July 2016

This article presents the argument that our understanding of the nature of the relationship between modern constitutionalism and religious difference has suffered with the success of the story of legal tolerance and multiculturalism. Taking up the Canadian case, in which the conventional narrative of legal multiculturalism has such purchase, this piece asks how the interaction of law and religion - and, in particular, the practices of legal tolerance - would look if we sought in earnest to understand law as a component, rather than a curator, of cultural diversity in modern liberal societies. Understanding the law as itself a cultural form forces us to think about the interaction of law and religion as an instance of cross-cultural encounter. Drawing from theoretical accounts of cross-cultural encounter and philosophical literature about the nature of toleration, and paying close attention to the shape of Canadian constitutional doctrine on religious freedom (law’s rules of cross-cultural engagement), this paper suggests that legal toleration is far less accommodative and far more assimilative than the conventional narrative lets on. Influential alternative theoretical accounts ultimately reproduce this dynamic because they similarly obscure the role of culture on both sides of the encounter of law and religion. Indeed, owing to the particular features of the culture of law’s rule, even the more thickly cultural "solutions" proposed in dialogic theory ultimately fail. In the end, this article exposes the very real cultural limits of legal tolerance.
Neither Here nor There: The (Non-) Impact of International Law on Judicial Reasoning in Canada and South Africa
Authors: Hudson Graham
Published: July 2016

In this paper, the author explores the question of whether formalizing the Canadian law of reception would lead to an increase in the domestic influence of international law. He begins by briefly recounting Canada’s decidedly informal law of reception and, through a review of academic commentary, suggests a relationship between informality and international law’s historically weak influence on judicial reasoning. Tying this commentary to seemingly sociological perspectives on globalization, judges’ international legal personality and the changing forms and functions of law, he forwards the hypothesis that judges’subjectiverecognition of the authority of international law can be engendered, modified and/or regulated through theproceduraluse of more familiar domestic legal authority. This hypothesis is then tested through a comparative analysis of the impact which international law has had in South Africa, where an historically informal law of reception akin to Canada’s has been replaced with clear and robust constitutional rules obligating the judiciary to consider and use international law. The author observes that there are no perceptible differences in the two jurisdictions; in neither country does international law exert a significant, regular or predictable impact on judicial reasoning. He concludes, modestly, that there is no available evidence to support the belief that Canadian judicial practice would change if the Canadian law of reception were formalized. He further concludes, less modestly, that this has significant implications for underlying legal theory and, in particular, that theories concerning how the domestic impact of international law can be augmented, though seemingly sociological, are decidedly positivist in orientation. Given that judges’ subjective attitudes towards international law are not perceptibly linked to domestic legal procedures, international, comparative and transnational legal theorists must, either, find evidence to demonstrate this link, or, recognize that their theoretical allegiances are divided between two, inconsistent traditions: legal positivism and the sociology of law.
Inclusivity and the Constitution of the Family
Authors: Chambers Clare
Published: July 2016

In this paper I focus on chapter 9 of Constitutional Goods, with its analysis of sex and family. In that chapter Alan Brudner uses the constitutional theory that he has developed throughout the book and applies it to two key issues of state regulation: sexual relationships and abortion. The arguments he uses with respect to both issues are novel, and the conclusion concerning abortion is particularly controversial. So there is much to say about those arguments, and discussion of them is the focus of the second half of the paper. But I start with some general remarks on Brudner’s project as a whole: the project of inclusivity. It is necessary to discuss the concept of inclusivity not only because it underpins the arguments of chapter 9. The idea of inclusivity is fundamental to Constitutional Goods as a whole, and in the first part of the paper I argue that this idea is problematic both conceptually and normatively.
The Place of Religion in Constitutional Goods
Authors: Zucca Lorenzo
Published: July 2016

This paper is about the place of religion in Alan Brudner’s Constitutional Goods. More generally, it offers some thoughts on the place of religion in constitutional theory and political philosophy today. This theologico-political question was central for many centuries, but gradually faded as our secular age affirmed itself. Recent political and social events at the European and at the global level have firmly turned the tide.
Possibility, Impossibility and Extraordinariness in Attempts
Authors: Donnelly Bebhinn
Published: July 2016

The relationship between possibility / impossibility and attempts is complex. Accounts of the relationship are often marked by a confusion that serves to distort our understanding of the nature of attempts as such. It will be argued below that impossibility is irrelevant to an understanding of attempts. This is not just to say that impossibility should not affect our view of how blameworthy certain defendants are. It is rather to say that the ‘impossibility’ referred to in the context of attempts is just notaboutattempts at all. In contrast, possibility is relevant to an understanding of attempts but its relevance is found to be universal and no normative distinctions among attempts can be made on the basis of possibility. If it can be shown that impossibility is a concept that does not belongtoattempts then it follows that attempts which are treated as different to ‘central cases’ of attempts in virtue of impossibility either, (a) are not different at all or, (b) are different for reasons other than impossibility. If some attempts belong to category (b) then it may be considered that the equal blame that is ordinarily taken to survive impossibility, does not survive these other reasons.
Federalist 37:Man, Language, and Theory
Authors: O’Hanlon Stephen
Published: July 2016

This article assesses three broad issues from James Madison’s writings inFederalist 37– (1) the nature of man, (2) the contestability of language, and (3) the relevance of theory to the real-world constitutional project. Part I discusses the implications of Madison’s conception of man, outlining some of the checks and balances that can limit political tyranny and assesses his idea of achieving stability by allowing faction in the new federal polity. Part II discusses the openness or contestability of language which Madison embraces inFederalist 37, and relates Madison’s position to the contemporary originalist or textualist approach to constitutional interpretation. Part III assesses implications that arise fromFederalist 37and concludes that, although real-life issues were at stake, the constitutional project was theoretical. Theory can incorporate real-life divergence of opinion.
Legality Without The Rule of Law? Scott Shapiro on Wicked Legal Systems
Authors: Dyzenhaus David
Published: July 2016

InLegality,Scott Shapiro – a leading legal positivist – analyses the problem of a wicked legal system in a way that brings him close to natural law positions. For he argues that a wicked legal system is botched as a legal system and I show that such an argument entails a prior argument that there is some set of standards or criteria internal to law which are both moral and legal. As a result, the more successful a legal order is legally speaking, the better the moral quality of its law, and the more it is a failure morally speaking, the worse the legal quality of its law. It is such moral features of law that Shapiro concedes make it plausible to account for law’s claim to justified authority over its subjects. However, Shapiro cannot, as a legal positivist, accept this entailment. His book thus brings to the surface and illuminates a central dilemma for legal positivism. If legal positivists wish to account for the authority of law they have to abandon legal positivism’s denial that law has such moral features. If they do not, they should revive a form of legal positivism that specifically abjures any claim to account for law’s normative nature.
Self-certification and the Moral Aims of the Law
Authors: Ripstein Arthur
Published: July 2016

InLegality, Scott Shapiro introduces what he calls the “Planning Theory of Law.” Shapiro introduces the idea of a plan with examples from outside of the law. He then must provide an account of what is distinctive about law, such that the other plan-based social orders are not also legal systems. He gives two answers: first, a legal system is organized by a moral aim. Second, a legal system is self-certifying. I examine these in turn, and argue that each can only characterize what is distinctive about law if the relevant moral problem that law aims to solve is itself specifically concerned with authority—that is with who gets to decide about what. Other forms of planning assign roles to people to solve problems that have nothing to do with authority; law uses role-based authority to solve a moral problem that is fundamentally about authority.
Can Tax Cuts Increase the Size of Government?
Authors: Shaviro Daniel N.
Published: July 2016

Recent U.S. tax cuts, to the extent that they involved a principled, long-term policy view, seem to have been aimed at shrinking the size of government. The idea apparently was to force eventual spending discipline, even (or perhaps especially) with respect to Social Security and Medicare, by turning reduced tax revenues into a political fact on the ground that would be difficult to reverse. In fact, however, the idea that the tax cuts would make the government smaller seems to have rested on spending illusion, or confusion between the actual size of government, in terms of its allocative and distributional effects, and the observed dollar flows that are denominated ‘taxes’ and ‘spending’.

Given the long-term budget constraint, which holds that government inflows and outlays must ultimately be equal in present value, and the huge preexisting fiscal imbalance, the tax cuts are likely to be paid for, in the main, through some combination of future tax increases and cuts to Social Security and Medicare. (Other government spending cuts, relative to the case where the tax cuts were not enacted, are likely as well, but cannot contribute nearly enough.) To the extent that the 2001 through 2003 tax cuts lead to future tax increases, the combined effect is likely to make the government bigger both allocatively and distributionally. To the extent that Social Security and Medicare spending bear the brunt, the government still gets larger in the sense of increasing redistribution from younger to older generations, although Medicare cuts might decrease the size of government allocatively.
Testing Theory and Debunking Stereotypes: Lawyers’ Views on the Practice of Law
Authors: Wilkinson Margaret Ann , Walker Christa , Mercer Peter
Published: July 2016

This article is the final report of a study of legal ethics and professionalism involving in depth interviews about problem solving conducted with nearly two hundred lawyers practicing in various settings: in different sizes of firms, in different sizes of communities, in private practice and in in-house or corporate counsel positions. Previously published findings of this research project having established that lawyers rarely turn to their ethical codes to solve problems, preferring instead to rely upon informal information gleaned from within their own offices (although lawyers from smaller firms remain more often comfortable with information drawn from beyond the firm than those from larger firms), this article focuses on analysis of the interviews of those lawyers who identified themselves as concerned with issues involving their roles as lawyers. The analysis maps the lawyers' own descriptions of their situations onto the “hired gun” and “counselor” models of lawyer-client interaction taken from the literature. The findings confirm our preliminary findings that these two roles are not mutually exclusive. Although all the lawyers concerned with their roles began in a mentoring mode, most lawyers eventually relinquished their decision-making to their clients, a transition fraught with challenges for many of them. A minority, however, despite the dictates of their code of ethics, withdrew from cases or even, exceptionally, substituted their own decision-making for that of their clients. The article links the mentoring model to the care perspective in the literature of moral development and the hired gun model to the rights perspective. The findings did not establish any support for the claim that the presence of women is creating a "softer" voice in the legal profession. However, two aspects of the structure of the profession, private practice versus in-house practice and the size of the centre in which the practice is located, engendered variations in professional attitudes.
Philosophical Anarchisms, Moral and Epistemological
Authors: Murphy Mark C.
Published: July 2016

The moral formulation of philosophical anarchism is that most persons, even in just political communities, do not have a moral obligation to obey the law. The epistemological formulation of philosophical anarchism is that most persons are unjustified in believing that they have a moral obligation to obey the law. But the philosophical anarchists’ argument strategies do not, and in fact cannot, show that belief in the moral obligation to obey the law is unjustified. And, further, given that most persons in just political communities do believe that they are under such an obligation, the moral requirement that one ought to act in accordance with one’s conscience implies that most persons have a moral obligation to obey the law. Thus the moral formulation of philosophical anarchism is false and the epistemological formulation unjustified.
In Defense of Classical Natural Law in Legal Theory: Why Unjust Law is No Law at All
Authors: Soper Philip
Published: July 2016

The classical view of natural law, often traced to Aquinas’ statement that “unjust law is no law at all,” finds few defenders today. Even those most sympathetic to natural law theories do not embrace the classical account, but, instead, convert Aquinas’ claim into a claim of political theory (unjust law does not obligate) or construct new “natural law” accounts about the connection between legal and moral principles in a theory of adjudication. In this paper, I defend the view that extreme injustice disqualifies otherwise valid official directives from counting as “law”. Indeed, I suggest that modern positivism’s characterization of the normative claims that typify legal systems leads inevitably to the conclusion that “law,” as a conceptual matter, must be understood by insiders who employ the term to admit moral limits on what can count as “law.” I proceed as follows. First, I begin with some preliminary clarifying comments about methodology and the precise issue under discussion. Second, I describe four leading theories about the nature of law and consider how central ideas in each theory can be seen to generate opposing ideas that lead in turn to opposing models of law. Third, I state briefly the affirmative case for thinking that the classical natural law view is correct. Fourth, I identify basic mistakes in current approaches to the question about the nature of law that help explain why modern positivism has overlooked the manner in which it leads logically to the classical natural law view. Finally, I add some brief remarks about why itmatters: what practical consequences follow from acknowledging that there are moral limits on what can count as law.
Is There any Blood on my Hands? Deportation as a Crime of International Law
Authors: CHETAIL VINCENT
Published: July 2016

The present article revisits international criminal law as a tool for sanctioning the most patent abuses against migrants. Although deportation is traditionally considered as an attribute of the state inherent to its territorial sovereignty, this prerogative may degenerate into an international crime. The prohibition of deportation has been a well-established feature of international criminal law since the Nuremberg trials following the Second World War. This prohibition has been further refined over the past 15 years by an extensive jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court.

Against such a background, this article demonstrates that, in some circumstances, deportation may amount to a war crime, a crime against humanity or even a crime of genocide, depending on the factual elements of the case and the specific requirements of the relevant crime. This article accordingly reviews the constitutive elements of each crime and transposes them into the context of migration control. It highlights in turn that, although its potential has been neglected by scholars and practitioners, international criminal law has an important role to play for domesticating the state's prerogative of deportation and infusing the rule of law into the field of migration. The article concludes that there are reasonable grounds for asserting that a crime against humanity would have been committed in the Dominican Republic and Australia with regard to their deportation policy.
The “A” in SAEA – Agricultural… or Applied?
Authors: Harris Hal
Published: July 2016

I am perhaps not the best person to argue the case of Agricultural Economics over that of Applied Economics. When I came to Clemson in 1975, we were Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology. When the number of sociologists dropped to one in 1990, we became Agricultural and Applied Economics. Our Ph.D. program had already adopted the title Applied Economics in 1984. People like Jim Hite, Buddy Dillman, and Mark Henry were leaders in Environmental Economics and Rural Economic Development and were fans of Applied Economics. I strongly agreed with these name changes at the time. Clemson was in the vanguard of similar name changes across the country over the past 25 years. But, I wonder now if we were wise or not.
Discussion: Agricultural Commodities and Agribusiness Stocks as Financial Assets
Authors: Brorsen B. Wade
Published: July 2016

Nonfarm investors might benefit from diversifying their portfolios by investing in the agricultural sector. Such diversifying investments could include investments in agricultural stocks or long-only futures positions through index funds. The papers in this session investigate the diversification potential of agricultural investments and discuss the effects of investments in index funds on agricultural markets.
Disentangling Corn Price Volatility: The Role of Global Demand, Speculation, and Energy
Authors: McPhail Lihong Lu , Du Xiaodong , Muhammad Andrew
Published: July 2016

Despite extensive literature on contributing factors to the high commodity prices and volatility in the recent years, few have examined these causal factors together in one analysis. We quantify empirically the relative importance of three factors: global demand, speculation, and energy prices/policy in explaining corn price volatility. A structural vector auto-regression model is developed and variance decomposition is applied to measure the contribution of each factor in explaining corn price variation. We find that speculation is important, but only in the short run. However, in the long run, energy is the most important followed by global demand.
Stock Market Reactions to Environmental News in the Food Industry
Authors: Deák Zsuzsanna , Karali Berna
Published: July 2016

Few studies to date have addressed the relationship between the food industry's environmental and financial performances although the industry is one of the biggest contributors of greenhouse gas emissions. We analyze the impact of environmental news about selected food companies on their stock prices. Results show that positive (negative) events that are the result of direct internal company actions lead to higher (lower) predicted returns, whereas events related to third-party opinions lead to smaller changes in predicted returns in short event windows. This study highlights the importance of conducting the analysis on a disaggregated basis by incorporating firm-level variables.
Understanding Factors That Influence Breeders to Sell Bulls at Performance Tests
Authors: Lillywhite J. M. , Simonsen J.
Published: July 2016

Breeders of purebred bulls have multiple avenues to market their bulls, including consignment at public auctions associated with performance tests. Purebred breeders often have the opportunity to withdraw bulls that are eligible to sell in these auctions. We examine sales data from a public auction held in conjunction with a performance bull test in Tucumcari, NM, to gain insights on breeder decisions to withdraw bulls prior to entering the sales ring. Specifically, we use a binary logit model to identify relevant characteristics that affect a breeder's decision to withdraw a sale eligible bull from the auction.
Modeling Pork Supply Response and Price Volatility: The Case of Greece
Authors: Rezitis Anthony N. , Stavropoulos Konstantinos S.
Published: July 2016

This paper examines the supply response of the Greek pork market. A GARCH process is used to estimate expected price and price volatility, while price and supply equations are estimated jointly. In addition to the standard GARCH model, several different symmetric, asymmetric, and nonlinear GARCH models are estimated. The empirical results indicate that among the estimated GARCH models, the quadratic NAGARCH model seems to better describe producers' price volatility, which was found to be an important risk factor of the supply response function of the Greek pork market. Furthermore, the empirical findings show that feed price is an important cost factor of the supply response function and that high uncertainty restricts the expansion of the Greek pork sector. Finally, the model provides forecasts for quantity supplied, producers' price, and price volatility.
Rural Gaps in Participation in Early Childhood Education
Authors: Temple Judy A.
Published: July 2016

While state government spending on early education has grown in recent years, accessibility of preschool programs for rural children remains a problem. Using census-tract data from a nationally-representative data set on U.S. children, multinomial logit estimation reveals significant differences in early education experiences between rural and nonrural children. Both rural children and children of less-educated mothers are less likely to participate in preschool. This paper concludes by discussing the appropriate role of local, state, or federal governments in funding rural preschool programs. While early educational investments are being touted as effective economic development tools, the nature of the positive externalities associated with preschool makes it unlikely that any single rural community would invest in high-quality programs without state or federal assistance.
Price Discovery in Nebraska Cattle Markets
Authors: Stockton Mathew C. , Bessler David A. , Wilson Roger K.
Published: July 2016

Monthly observations on prices from 10 weight/gender classifications of Nebraska beef cattle are studied in an error correction model (ECM) framework. This study attempts a replication of the 2003 paper on Texas prices by Bessler and Davis, where they find medium heifers (600-700 1b) at the center of price discovery. Using the ECM results Nebraska light steers are found to be weakly exogenous, with the innovation accounting results showing marked differences. Industry structure, production choices, and animal type and breeding herd differences between Texas and Nebraska are proposed as plausible reasons for partial (or incomplete) success at replication.
An Analysis of Food Grain Consumption in Urban Jiangsu Province of China
Authors: Zheng Zhihao , Henneberry Shida Rastegari
Published: July 2016

The impacts of economic and demographic variables on the demand for food grain commodities in urban Jiangsu province of China are estimated, using both the QUAIDS and the AIDS models. Results show that the demands for wheat flour and coarse grains are price-elastic while the demands for rice and grain products are price-inelastic. Certain demographic variables show as having a significant impact on food grain demand. Finally, a decomposition of causes of changes in rice consumption over the period of 1995-2007 is performed.
Analysis of Import Demand for Wooden Beds in the U.S.
Authors: Wan Yang , Sun Changyou , Grebner Donald L.
Published: July 2016

The market of wooden beds in the U.S. has been flooded with imports from China and Vietnam in recent years. Static and dynamic Almost Ideal Demand System models are used to assess the import demand for wooden beds from the top seven supplying countries. The analyses reveal that the antidumping investigation on China has some temporary trade depression effect on China, but trade diversion occurs to Vietnam, Indonesia, Canada, and Brazil. The formal implementation of antidumping duties since 2005 has not shown any significant effect on the trade pattern. U.S. consumers spend more on beds from newly industrialized countries and there are moderate degrees of substitution among wooden beds from most countries.
Details of the Proposed Stacked Income Protection Plan (STAX) Program for Cotton Producers and Potential Strategies for Extension Education
Authors: Campiche Jody
Published: July 2016

The new Farm Bill could lead to significant changes for commodity producers. The potential impact of these changes on cotton producers is examined. In particular, the difference between the existing Direct and Counter-Cyclical Payment Program and the new Stacked Income Protection Plan (STAX) for cotton producers is discussed. An illustrative example is provided to show how payments to cotton producers could potentially differ for a specific year under various programs. Detailed information on STAX calculations and a STAX payment calculator is included to assist with the development of Extension programs targeted to cotton producers, landowners, and bankers.
Land-use Change, Resource Competition, and Conflict: Discussion
Authors: Hite James C.
Published: July 2016

While it probably is not possible to cover comprehensively all the major resources issues in the South as we more into the 21st century, these three papers, taken together, give us a fairly good glimpse at some of the resource issues likely to dominate discussion in the next decade.
Experimental Markets Using the Electronic Market Place (EMP)
Authors: Fackler Paul L. , McNew Kevin
Published: July 2016

A computer system for implementing electronic markets on networks of personal computers is described. The program allows a researcher or teacher to design market simulations to meet a variety of goals, and records a complete set of market activities for analysis. Illustrations of example markets are provided, and the classroom application of market simulations in teaching agricultural economics is discussed.
Structural Change Implications for Small Farms: Discussion
Authors: Hinson Roger A.
Published: July 2016

Gebremedhin and Christy focus on agriculture's trend toward concentration and industrialization, and how small farms may be affected by the mostly unintended consequences of government policy. They identify a set of forces that may move smaller farmers out of agriculture, resulting in social costs both to individuals and families forced to change occupations and homes, and to their communities.
Measuring the Effects of U.S. Meat Trade on Consumers' Welfare
Authors: Huang Kuo S.
Published: July 2016

A set of ordinary and inverse demand systems for U.S. quarterly meat consumption is estimated for use to measure the effects of U.S. meat trade on consumers' welfare. The approach is useful to incorporate all direct- and cross-commodity effects into price forecasting and the Hicksian compensating variation measurement.
Safety Nets or Trampolines? Federal Crop Insurance, Disaster Assistance, and the Farm Bill
Authors: Goodwin Barry K. , Rejesus Roderick M.
Published: July 2016

We review the implications of the 2007 Farm Bill for the risk management dimensions of U.S. agriculture and policy. Legislative proposals suggest significant changes in risk management policy, including the introduction of state or national revenue insurance. We also pursue an empirical analysis of the interrelationships of crop insurance, disaster relief, and farm profitability. We find an inverse relationship between disaster assistance and insurance purchases. Our analysis also suggests that farmers that buy insurance and that receive disaster payments tend to have higher returns to farming.
A Coasian Approach to Efficient Water Allocation of a Transboundary River
Authors: Willis David B. , Baker Justin S.
Published: July 2016

The United States and Mexico recently resolved a decade-old water dispute that required Mexico to repay the accumulated water debt within one year. A Coasian analysis estimates the social welfare gains attainable to each country under an alternative debt repayment scheme that allows repayment over a longer time horizon and in a combination of dollars and water, instead of solely in water. Assuming average water supply conditions, under the agreed 1-year repayment contract, U.S. compensation value is 534% greater and Mexico's compensation cost is 60% less relative to when compensation is paid exclusively in water.
Acreage Response Under Farm Programs for Major Southeastern Field Crops
Authors: Duffy Patricia A. , Shalishali Kasazi , Kinnucan Henry W.
Published: July 2016

An expected utility model that includes output price and yield uncertainty was used to estimate cotton, com, and soybean acreage response equations for the Southeast. The model appeared to fit the soybean and corn data well, resulting in own-price elasticity estimates of 0.317 for com and 0.727 for soybeans. When applied to cotton acreage, however, the model did not yield satisfactory results. When elasticity was allowed to change over time, however, statistical results for the cotton equation improved, yielding an own-price elasticity of 0.915 at data means.
Noncompetitive Pricing and Exchange Rate Pass-Through in Selected U.S. and Thai Rice Markets
Authors: Yumkella K. K. , Unnevehr L. J. , Garcia P.
Published: July 2016

A “pricing to market” international trade model is applied to U.S. and Thai rice exports to high and middle income countries that are continuous rice importers. These markets are characterized by strong quality preferences and highly inelastic demand, and thus exporters may exercise market power. Evidence of noncompetitive pricing either through price discrimination across destinations or through imperfect exchange rate pass-through is found in this small but growing segment of the international rice trade.
U.S. Cigarette Smoking and Health Warnings: New Evidence From Post World War II Data
Authors: Blaine Thomas W. , Reed Michael R.
Published: July 2016

A framework was developed in order to specify a model for annual U.S. per capita consumption of cigarettes. Three separate time related variables were utilized to measure the effects of health related information regarding smoking. The empirical results from the post World War II data set reveal that while prices and income are important determinants of cigarette consumption, the estimates for both were in the inelastic range. The age distribution of the adult population is also an important variable. While the development of the filter tip has been successful in stimulating smoking, the low tar and nicotine innovation has not had a statistically significant effect. Health information has repeatedly produced substantial short and long run effects. Current consumption is falling at an annual rate of between 3 to 4 percent.
The Endowment Effect and WTA: A Quasi-Experimental Test
Authors: MacDonald H.F. , Bowker J.M.
Published: July 2016

This paper reports a test of the endowment effect in an economic analysis of localized air pollution. Regression techniques are used to test the significance of perceived property rights on household WTP for improved air quality versus WTA compensation to forgo an improvement in air quality. Our experiment contributes to the research into the WTP/WTA divergence by providing a new basis for supporting the existence of an endowment effect. Our results are in contrast to recent work by Shogren et al. which supports the substitution proposition of Hanemann while rejecting the endowment effect.