Individual Autonomy in Corporate Law

The field of corporate law is riven with competing visions of the corporation. This Article seeks to identify points of broad agreement by negative implication. It examines two developments in corporate law that have drawn widespread criticism from corporate law scholars: the Supreme Court\u27s recognition of corporate religious rights in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and the Nevada legislature\u27s decision to eliminate mandatory fiduciary duties for corporate directors and officers. Despite their fundamental differences, both resulted in expanding individual rights or autonomy within the corporation-for shareholders and managers, respectively. The visceral critiques aimed at these two developments suggest a broadly shared view that the corporation is a device that should be optimized for collective action of a particular type-namely large-scale economic activity. As such, once one has opted into the corporate form, little room remains for the exercise of individual rights and autonomy ex post. Corporate law permits shareholders and managers to act only in limited and highly formalized ways. In this view, the strong assertion of shareholder and managerial autonomy in Hobby Lobby and Nevada\u27s corporate law is problematic fbr three reasons. First, it conflicts with longstanding principles underlying the corporate form. Second, it is arguably inefficient, even where it comports with the parties\u27 private ordering. Third, despite its liberalizing aims, it is likely to foster even greater regulatory complexity or involvement in the long run. While there are no easy answers to how one should weigh individual rights against economic efficiency, advancing personal autonomy by altering the corporate form may ultimately provide little autonomy bang for one\u27s buck. From both a rights and an efficiency perspective, there are better means to champion the individual over the group

Household behavior and individual autonomy

intra-household allocation, household financial management, degree of autonomy, Lindahl prices, local income pooling, separate spheres

Household behavior and individual autonomy.

The paper proposes a model of household behavior with both private and public consumption where the spouses independently maximize their utilities, but taking into account, together with their own individual budget constraints, the collective household budget constraint with public goods evaluated at Lindahl prices. The Lagrange multipliers associated with these constraints are used to parameterize the set of equilibria, in addition to the usual parameterization by income shares. The proposed game generalizes both the ‘collective’ model of household behavior and the non-cooperative game with voluntary contributions to public goods.Intra-household allocation, household financial management, degree of autonomy, Lindahl prices, local income pooling, separate spheres.

Household behavior and individual autonomy: A Lindahl approach.

A comprehensive model of economic household decision is presented which incorporates both fully cooperative and fully non-cooperative variants, parameterized by the income distribution, as well as a semi-cooperative variant, parameterized in addition by a vector B, representing the degrees of individual autonomy. In this comprehensive model, the concept of "household B-equilibrium" is introduced through the reformulation of the Lindahl equilibrium in strategic terms. Existence is proved and some generic properties of the household B-equilibrium derived. An example is given to illustrate. Finally a particular decomposition of the pseudo-Slutsky matrix is derived and the testability of the various models discussed.Intra-household allocation, household financial management, degree of autonomy, Lindahl prices, local income pooling, separate spheres.

INDIVIDUAL DELIBERATION, MORAL AUTONOMY AND EMOTIONS : ROUSSEAU ON CITIZENSHIP

The present study addresses the question of uncertainty in individual deliberation in Rousseau's philosophy. Accordingly, it intends to consider in a new light his account of virtue and citizenship which cannot possibly be defined as systematic obedience to the general will. Weakness of the will, indeterminacy and prudence have not yet been adequately emphasized, despite some convincing evidence. Chapter XI, book III, of the Social Contract on the death of the body politic, for example, prompts us to reconsider the individuals' allegiance to the general will. However, it would be equally extreme to dismiss the core of his thought which affirms the legitimate superiority of the general will over particular desires. Rather it will beillustrated here that, when brought together, these two propositions provide a fruitful way of approaching this ethical issue.Rousseau ; Freedom ; Ethics

A Critique of Alfred R Mele’s Work on Autonomous Agents: From Self-Control to Autonomy

The book, Autonomous Agents: From Self-Control to Autonomy (1995), by Alfred R. Mele, deals primarily with two main concepts, “self-control” and “individual autonomy,” and the relationship between them. The book is divided into two parts: (1) a view of self-control, the self-controlled person, and behaviour manifesting self-control, and (2) a view of personal autonomy, the autonomous person, and autonomous behaviour. Mele (Ibid.) defines self-control as the opposite of the Aristotelian concept of akrasia, or the contrary of akrasia, which implies weakness of will, incontinence, or lack of self-control—the state of mind in which one acts against one’s better judgement. According to Mele, the concept of self-control can be approached from two perspectives: (a) how self-control affects human behaviour, and (b) how self-control-associated behavior can enhance our understanding of ‘personal autonomy’ and ‘autonomous behaviour’—personal autonomy requires self-control, and autonomous persons and autonomous behaviour are naturally found together. Therefore, I might say that self-control is essential to enhancing one’s autonomy. In part I, we find an account of self-control where Mele argues that even an ideally self-controlled person might lack autonomy. In part II, Mele gives an explicit account of autonomy and explains what must be added to self-control to achieve autonomy. This is the pivotal claim made by Mele (dismantling the intuitively connected notions of self-control and autonomy)

Patient autonomy and education in specific medical knowledge

The asymmetry between the patient as a layman and the physician as an expert is a key element in health economics. However, a change to a higher degree of patient autonomy has taken place. Furthermore, there is a consensus in a positive correlation between general education and productivity of medical care. This paper focuses on the individual investments of laymen in specific medical education as a decision problem in which the ex-post strategies of the individual are consultation and self-care as imperfect substitutes. It is assumed that specific knowledge increases the self-diagnosis competence (self-protection) and the self-care productivity (self-insurance) as dimensions of autonomy. The analysis is divided into two forms of ex-post decision making according to individual rationality: 1. ambiguity 2. uncertainty. An elaboration of necessary conditions for investments in education is undertaken. --patient autonomy,education,self-care,ambiguity,uncertainty

Preferences for redistribution around the world

Gender, income, education and self-employment are robust predictors for individual support for redistribution in the OECD. In addition, considerations of social status, the fairness of the allocation mechanism, perceived moral worth of the poor and individual autonomy are important. The results for the OECD are compared to those for a large sample of non-OECD countries which also include less developed economies. Neither gender, nor self-employment, nor fairness considerations exhibit a robust association with preferences for redistribution. However, education, income, individual autonomy and moral worth of the poor remain important determinants. On average, preferences for redistribution indicate that within the OECD, there is no desire to change redistributive policies. In contrast, in the sample of non-OECD countries, on average there is a desire to redistribute less. --preferences for redistribution,social rivalry effect,social identity,survey data,World Values Survey

Local Autonomy, Tax Morale and the Shadow Economy

Policymakers often propose strict enforcement strategies to fight the shadow economy and to increase tax morale. However, there is also a bottom-up approach such as, for example, decentralizing the political power to those who are close to the problems. Thus, this paper analyses the relationship between local autonomy and tax morale or the size of the shadow economy. We use data on tax morale at the individual level and macro data of the size of the shadow economy to systematically analyse the relevance of local autonomy and compliance in Switzerland, a country where the degree of federalism varies across different cantons. The findings suggest that there is a positive (negative) relationship between local autonomy and tax morale (size of the shadow economy).Tax Morale; Shadow Economy; Tax Compliance; Tax Evasion; Local Autonomy; Federalism; Institution