The Pomeron structure and diffractive parton distributions

Measurements of the diffractive structure function, $F_2^D$, of the proton at HERA are used to extract the partonic structure of the Pomeron. Regge Factorization is tested and is found to describe well the existing data within the selected kinematic range. The analysis is based on the next to leading order QCD evolution equations. The results obtained from various data sets are compared. An analysis of the uncertainties in determining the parton distributions is provided. The probability of diffraction is calculated using the obtained results.Comment: Talk presented at DIS05, Madison, Wisconsi

On the Alienation of Legal Claims

Courts have become increasingly skeptical about rules restricting plaintiffs’ ability to sell legal claims, and legal commentators have argued that markets for claims would be efficient, moving claims to those who can prosecute them most efficiently. Claim sales intuitively might appear to present a clash of economic and philosophical arguments, with perceived efficiency benefits coming at the expense of societal commitments to values other than efficiency. In this Article, Professor Abramowicz argues that economic and philosophical arguments do point in opposite directions, but in the reverse directions from what one might expect. A range of philosophical and other noneconomic considerations, such as concerns about commodification, corrective justice, legal ethics, and procedural justice, pose no significant problems for claim sales. There is, however, a significant economic problem. Markets for legal claims face a particularly strong adverse selection effect, because a prospective purchaser must consider not only why the plaintiff wishes to dispose of the claim, but also why the plaintiff cannot obtain a better deal from the defendant. Thus, even a regime permitting alienation might result in very few claim sales, and many of those may be motivated by prospective inefficiencies, such as attempts to manipulate the path of legal doctrine. If, however, in some legal context plaintiffs managed to overcome this adverse selection problem, so that claim sales became the norm, the economic concern would be eliminated. But philosophical concerns would reemerge, as this Article shows by using a hypothetical mandatory alienation regime as a heuristic device

Bifurcating Settlements

In settling a lawsuit, parties agree on their obligations to one another, but they need not separately address each issue, claim, or remedy that a trial court would have confronted. The legal system, however, can bifurcate the settle-ment process, requiring separate resolution of components of a settlement. Bi-furcation can protect third parties, for example, by preventing divorcing parents from trading child custody for money. In addition to identifying a wide range of contexts in which preventing trade-offs may be desirable, this Article shows that bifurcation will generally have only modest (and sometimes beneficial) effects on settlement rates

Patent Auctions

In advancing his prospect theory of patents, Edmund Kitch dismissed the possibility of distributing rights to particular inventions through an auction, arguing that the patent system avoids the need for governmental officials to define the boundaries of inventions that have not yet been created. Auctions for patent rights to entire inventive fields, however, might accentuate the benefits of a prospect approach, by allowing for earlier and broader patents. Auction designs that award the patent to the bidder that commits the most money to research and development or that agrees to charge the lowest price, meanwhile, can reduce the costs of prospect approach. Concerns about the government’s ability to decide correctly when to hold auctions, however, provide an uneasy case for patent races over patent auctions. More modest uses of auctions might improve welfare. For example, an auction to a small number of parties of the right to race in a technological field might reduce wasteful duplication and thus accelerate innovation. Similarly, patentees might be allowed to demand auctions for extended patent scope, with the caveat that a patentee would need to substantially outbid others to win such an auction

Market-Based Administrative Enforcement

In administrative law, the market paradigm has led to revolution, as policymakers have followed commentators in turning from command-andcontrol regulation to incentives. This reconceptualization, however, has left one aspect of administrative law untouched: administrative adjudication. This neglect is unjustified, as the Article shows that adjudication itself could be accomplished through market processes. In an administrative market, the government would auction off rights to a fraction of any judgment award that an administrative agency might ultimately win against a given corporation. Such a market would reward third-party efforts to gather relevant information by allowing those possessing private information to trade on it. With further refinement, the government could use this market to determine what the final judgment against the corporation should be, thus supplanting traditional adjudicatio

Tax Experimentation

Random experiments could allow the government to test tax policies before they are enacted into general law. Such experiments can be revenue-neutral, with the tax authority ensuring ex post that average tax revenues received from taxpayers in the treatment and control groups are equal. Taxpayers might thus volunteer even for experiments that would broaden the tax base, for example by eliminating deductions. Continued participation by taxpayers in such experiments would indicate that the proposed reforms are efficient at least if externalities are disregarded. Non-revenue-neutral experiments raise greater concerns about horizontal inequity, but they may be helpful in addressing questions about effects of tax rates and in increasing participation

Perfecting Patent Prizes

When anthrax attacks recently led to a run on the patented antibiotic drug Cipro, politicians and commentators suggested that the government consider purchasing generic alternatives. Some used the occasion to illustrate what they perceived as a broader problem with patent protection: that pharmaceutical companies seeking profits would not allow the sick to obtain access to needed medications. The argument repeated a familiar refrain in the intellectual property debate, as a long history of articles has inquired whether society would be better off with no patent or copyright law at all. Even recently, commentators have questioned the broad scope of intellectual property protection, arguing that business methods should not be patent able or that copyright terms should be shorter than Congress has dictated. The antiprotection advocates have won some victories, but the Patent and Trademark Office does business largely as before, or even as never before