A Proposal to Amend Rule 407 of the Federal Rules of Evidence to Conform with the Underlying Relevancy Rationale for the Rule in Negligence and Strict Liability Actions

The current version of FRE 407 prevents the use of evidence of remedial measures taken after an event that caused an injury or harm in order to prove negligence, culpable conduct, or strict product liability. Our proposal is that the language of Rule 407 be amended to preclude the admissibility of remedial measures which are taken both before and after an injury. This change will implement the relevancy rationale for the rule

To Mark Or Not To Mark: Application Of The Patent Marking Statute To Websites And The Internet

Patentees, and persons making, offering for sale, or selling within the United States any patented article for or under them, or importing any patented article into the United States, may give notice to the public that the same is patented, either by fixing thereon the word patent or the abbreviation pat. , together with the number of the patent, or when, from the character of the article, this can not be done, by fixing to it, or to the package wherein one or more of them is contained, a label containing a like notice. In the event of failure so to mark, no damages shall be recovered by the patentee in any action for infringement, except on proof that the infringer was notified of the infringement and continued to infringe thereafter, in which event damages may be recovered only for infringement occurring after such notice. Filing of an action for infringement shall constitute such notice

Simulating Russia’s and other large economies’ challenging and interconnected transitions

This paper develops a large-scale, dynamic life-cycle model to simulate Russia’s demographic and fiscal transition under favorable and unfavorable fossil-fuel price regimes. The model includes Russia, the U.S., China, India, the EU, and Japan+ (Japan plus Korea). The model predicts dramatic increases in tax rates in the U.S., EU, India, and Russia. Indeed, the increases are so large as to question their political feasibility let alone their actual collection given the potential for tax avoidance and tax evasion.http://kotlikoff.net/articlesFirst author draf

Factors of global inflation in 2021–2022

The paper examines the factors of global inflation acceleration in 2021–2022. We consider primarily the developed economies, where rates of inflation over the last two years have exceeded multi-year highs and have significantly exceeded target levels. We find that the cause of accelerating inflation was an imbalance between aggregate demand, which started to increase rapidly in the second half of 2020 as economies began to adapt to the circumstances of the pandemic, and aggregate supply, which encountered persistent constraints associated with interruptions in global supply chains. Significant support for demand was provided by fiscal stimulus that was unprecedented in scale and was accompanied by policy interest rates reaching extremely low levels, and by active injections of liquidity by central banks. The willingness of governments to implement ultra-expansionary monetary and fiscal policies can to a considerable degree be attributed to the fact that during the previous decade large budget deficits, zero interest rates, and programs of quantitative easing had not resulted in macroeconomic destabilization. We examine the view of many central banks that the inflationary wave would not be long-lasting, which was a crucial reason for delaying the interest rates increase. We consider the conditions in which the leading economies might fall into the stagflation trap