Economists on Deregulation of the American Legal Profession: Praise and Critique

Both law professors and economists are discussing deregulation of the American legal profession, often without consulting each other. This symposium essay reviews the book length deregulation argument entitled First Thing We Do, Let’s Deregulate All the Lawyers. The essay argues that Let’s Deregulate is a tremendous addition to the literature: it disregards laws various professional shibboleths and offers a crisp and persuasive argument that the current barriers to entry are very, very costly to law students, clients, and society at large. Let’s Deregulate estimates the 2004 lawyers’ earning premium at $64 billion. The estimation is high, but well supported. Even if the absolute figure is rejected, the finding that barriers to entry have raised lawyer salaries is patent and inescapable. There are two notable weaknesses to Let’s Deregulate, however. First, while the supply side argument (entry barriers result in fewer lawyers, reduced competition, and higher prices) is outstanding, the demand side argument is much less persuasive. Let’s Deregulate asserts that a raft of recent laws and regulations (including various environmental, class action, consumer protection and intellectual property laws) are inefficient and more costly than beneficial. This claim is difficult enough to prove empirically, but Let’s Deregulate piles on by claiming that the legal profession has been a prime mover in the creation of these laws. These two claims add an unnecessary degree of controversy and difficulty to an already unlikely mission. Critics of deregulation can thus characterize the entire effort as a politically motivated assault on disliked law, rather than an even-handed attempt to quantify the costs and benefits of lawyer regulation. Second, and more understandably, Let’s Deregulate misses some of the unique nuances of the market for lawyers. For instance, it suggests that state legislatures control lawyer regulation, and state supreme courts actually do. This is a critical distinction for any reform effort. The analysis also treats the market for lawyers as a monolith, and there is much evidence that there are two private markets for legal services: big law firms who compete internationally for large scale corporate work and everybody else – small firms and solo practitioners working for smaller businesses and individuals. Despite the critiques, the essay concludes that Let’s Deregulate is a tremendous addition to the literature and encourages more lawyer/economist cross-pollination on the topic

Study protocol for a controlled trial of strengths model case management in mental health services in Hong Kong

Introduction Although strengths-based models are popular within recovery-oriented approaches, there is still a lack of conclusive research to guide how they should be implemented. A recent meta-analysis confirmed the lack of clarity in how this perspective is operationalised and that fidelity monitoring during the implementation process is lacking. Hence, there is a clear need to evaluate the feasibility of delivering and evaluating a clearly operationalised strengths-based intervention that incorporates fidelity checks to inform more definitive research. This protocol therefore describes a controlled trial of Strengths Model Case Management (SMCM), a complex intervention, for people with severe mental illnesses in Hong Kong. This trial follows the guidelines of the Medical Research Council as a phase 2 trial. Hence, it is a pilot study that tests the feasibility and effectiveness of the model. Methods and analysis This is a 9-month controlled trial that uses the Kansas Model. Participants and a matched control group are recruited on a voluntary basis, after screening for eligibility. Effectiveness of the SMCM will be measured through outcome measures taken at baseline, the mid-point and at the end of the trial. Outcomes for service users include personal recovery, hope, subjective well-being, psychiatric symptoms, perceived level of recovery features within the organisation, therapeutic alliance and achievement of recovery goals. Outcomes for care workers will include job burnout, organisational features of recovery and perceived supervisory support. With a 2×3 analysis of variance design and a moderate intervention effect (Cohen's d=0.50), a total of 86 participants will be needed for a statistical power of 0.80. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval has been obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee for Non-Clinical Faculties at The University of Hong Kong (HRECNCF: EA140913). Trial registration number Australian New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry (ACTRN)12613001120763

Two types of electronic states in one dimensional crystals of finite length

Exact and general results on the electronic states in one dimensional crystals bounded at tau and tau+L - where L=Na, N is a positive integer and a is the potential period - are presented. Corresponding to each energy band of Bloch wave, there are N-1 states in the finite crystal and their energies are dependent on the crystal length L but not on the crystal boundary tau and map the energy band exactly; There is always one and only one electronic state correponding to each band gap of the Bloch wave, whose energy is dependent on the crystal boundary tau but not on the crystal length L. This state is either a constant energy confined state at a band edge or a surface state in the gap. A slight change of the boundary tau could change the property and energy of this state dramaticaly.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figure

Four-loop beta function and mass anomalous dimension in Dimensional Reduction

Within the framework of QCD we compute renormalization constants for the strong coupling and the quark masses to four-loop order. We apply the DR-bar scheme and put special emphasis on the additional couplings which have to be taken into account. This concerns the epsilon-scalar--quark Yukawa coupling as well as the vertex containing four epsilon-scalars. For a supersymmetric Yang Mills theory, we find, in contrast to a previous claim, that the evanescent Yukawa coupling equals the strong coupling constant through three loops as required by supersymmetry.Comment: 15 pages, fixed typo in Eq. (18

Nonequilibrium phenomena in bilayer electron systems

In the present Letter, we have used magnetocapacitance and magnetoresistance measurements to investigate nonequilibrium phenomena in a bilayer electron system based on GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures. The magnetic field ramping drives the bilayer electron system out of equilibrium, leading to magnetoresistance hysteresis and spikes. Unlike magnetoresistance, magnetocapacitance results intriguingly show hysteresis even when both layers are in the quantum Hall state. The hysteresis is accompanied by interlayer charge transfer, but the disequilibrium is not limited to interlayer imbalance. Results show that the edge-bulk imbalance can be the initial ground for the appearance of hysteresis. In addition, the nonequilibrium states are observed in which the total, rather than individual, layer densities determine the magnetic field and gate voltage dependencies

Interference effects in a tunable quantum point contact integrated with an electronic cavity

We show experimentally how quantum interference can be produced using an integrated quantum system comprising an arch-shaped short quantum wire (or quantum point contact, QPC) of 1D electrons and a reflector forming an electronic cavity. On tuning the coupling between the QPC and the electronic cavity, fine oscillations are observed when the arch QPC is operated in the quasi-1D regime. These oscillations correspond to interference between the 1D states and a state which is similar to the Fabry-Perot state and suppressed by a small transverse magnetic field of ±60  mT. Tuning the reflector, we find a peak in resistance which follows the behavior expected for a Fano resonance. We suggest that this is an interesting example of a Fano resonance in an open system which corresponds to interference at or near the Ohmic contacts due to a directly propagating, reflected discrete path and the continuum states of the cavity corresponding to multiple scattering. Remarkably, the Fano factor shows an oscillatory behavior taking peaks for each fine oscillation, thus, confirming coupling between the discrete and continuum states. The results indicate that such a simple quantum device can be used as building blocks to create more complex integrated quantum circuits for possible applications ranging from quantum-information processing to realizing the fundamentals of complex quantum systems