Supreme Court of Canada Justices are Unpredictable - Mostly, Part II

Benjamin Alarie
Wednesday, September 26, 2007

This is a follow-up to the previous post regarding the paper Andrew Green and I recently posted on SSRN.  The point of this post is to elaborate on the motivation for the paper and summarize our results.

Is Gender Really More Important than Appointing Prime Minister?

Benjamin Alarie
Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Professors Jame Stribopoulos and Moin Yahya recently published an article in the Osgoode Hall Law Journal entitled, Does a Judge's Party of Appointment or Gender Matter to Case Outcomes? An Empirical Study of the Court of Appeal for Ontario.  The abstract explains:

This study reveals that at least in certain categories of cases, both party of appointment and gender are statistically significant in explaining case outcomes.  Between these two variables, gender actually appears to be the stronger determinant of outcome in certain types of cases.  While these findings are cause for concern, this study also points toward a simple solution.  Diversity in the composition of appeal panels both from the standpoint of gender and party of appointment dampened the statistical influence of either variable.  In other words, in the case of gender, a single judge on a panel who is of the opposite sex from the others, or in the case of political party, a single judge appointed by a different political party, is sufficient to eliminate the potential distorting influence of either variable.  This finding suggests a need to reform how appeal panels are currently assembled in order to ensure political and gender diversity and minimize concerns about the potential for bias.

New Articles Available Online: On Competition Law and Intellectual Property, and on Patents and Phramaceuticals Regulation

Ariel Katz
Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Two articles of mine have been recently published and are available online.  The first article, published in 49 Arizona Law Review is Making Sense of Nonsense: Intellectual Property, Antitrust, and Market Power.  Here's the abstract:

While the economic rationale for intellectual property ("IP") rights rests on the concepts of "monopoly" or "market power," the U.S. Supreme Court, in Illinois Tool Works v. Independent Ink, has recently joined a "virtual consensus" among antitrust commentators believing that no presumption of market power should exist in antitrust cases involving IP. This Article critically analyzes this consensus, and clarifies the relationship between IP and market power, shows why IP rights often do confer market power in the antitrust sense, but also explains why acknowledging this should not necessarily lead to oversized application of antitrust law to IP.

The second article is Pharmaceutical Lemons: Innovation and Regulation in the Drug Industry, published in 14 Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review.  Here's the abstract:

Collectivizing Rights; Privatizing Taxation: The Unarticulated Function of Copyright Collectives

Ariel Katz
Friday, March 14, 2008

The recent proposal from the Songwriters Association of Canada to fully legalize peer-to-peer file sharing of music by adding a $5 monthly charge to the cost of Internet access (and similar proposals floating south of the border) has brought renewed attention in the role of levies and tariffs collected by copyright collectives in Canada.  I am now beginning a research project that looks at the broader implications of the expansion of collective administration of copyrights and the use of levies and tariffs.  Since the topic is current, I thought I'd use the blog not only for sharing some of my initial thoughts, but hopefully, to solicit some ideas that will help me to shape them.  Therefore, I'm posting below the description of the project and the questions  it seeks to answer.  Comments on or off the blog will be highly appreciated.  Here it is:

Canadian Law and Economics Association Annual Meeting - Call for Papers

Ariel Katz
Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The next Annual Meeting of the Canadian Law and Economics Association will be held on Sept. 26-27, 2008.  As usual, the meeting will be held at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.  More details and Call for Papers here.

 

Substitution and Schumpeterian Effects Over the Lifecycle of Copyrighted Works

Ariel Katz
Monday, August 11, 2008

I have posted a new paper on SSRN.  The paper, titled Substitution and Schumpeterian Effects Over the Lifecycle of Copyrighted Works, develops the following two key insights. First, copyrighted works are affected by two types of competitive forces: substitutive competition and Schumpeterian competition. Second, the relevant magnitude of each of these competitive forces changes at various points over the lifecycle of copyrighted works. The earlier stages of a work's lifecycle are dominated by substitution effects, whereby many other works can function as very close substitutes. As the work develops to a full product, to which many other inputs have been added, it becomes less easily substitutable. This process intensifies as network effects of various kinds secure successful works' market position and render them less vulnerable to competition from close imitations. The competitive threat to which such works may be exposed becomes more Schumpeterian in nature: competition from other works which offer something new, and potentially preferable. Generally, copyright law unequivocally discourages merely substitutive competition, but is much less interested in discouraging Schumpeterian competition. This paper's time-based analysis provides both a justification to this distinction, as well as grounds to evaluating various existing rules and doctrines.

Canadian Law & Economics Association Public Lecture (Speaker: Richard Epstein)

THE 2012 MEETINGS OF
THE CANADIAN LAW AND ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO FACULTY OF LAW

 September 28 – 29, 2012

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JIM TORY LAW AND ECONOMICS PUBLIC LECTURE

“Rate Regulation and Network Industries”

by

Taking a Buy Canadian Route Would be a Legal Sell-Out

Ed Morgan
Friday, February 13, 2009

This article was first published in the Globe and Mail on February 12, 2009.

In one of his more dramatic Question Period performances, the federal NDP Leader announced last week that the “United States has had a Buy American Act for 76 years,” and that “it's perfectly legal.” He then followed up: “Can the Prime Minister tell us what's wrong with a Buy Canadian policy as permitted under continental and global trade rules?”

The question was prompted by the new protectionist proviso attached to Congress's economic stimulus bill. It is, however, premised on a faulty foundation.

The legal truth is a complicated one. It involves a fine analysis of U.S. legislative history, along with Canada's treaty obligations under the North American free-trade agreement, and the World Trade Organization rules and their annexes on central and subcentral government procurement policies. The Canadian Auto Workers, with their allies the United Steelworkers, have procured a legal opinion on which Jack Layton's assertions are apparently based, although a careful reading of the opinion reveals the complexity. But if you think organized labour and its politicians can't turn a multifaceted legal question into a singular polemic about economic nationalism, then you don't know Jack.

Law and Economics Workshop (Speaker: Francesco Parisi)

LAW & ECONOMICS WORKSHOP

presents

Professor Francesco Parisi
University of Minnesota Law School

Double-Edged Torts

Tuesday, November 6, 2012
4:10 – 6:00
Solarium (room FA2) – Falconer Hall

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