119 Yale L.J. 384 (2009).
It is commonly asserted that innovation markets suffer from excessive intellectual property protections, which in turn stifle output. But empirical inquiries can neither confirm nor deny this assertion. Under the agnostic assumption that we cannot assess directly whether intellectual property coverage is excessive, an alternative query is proposed: can the market assess if any “propertization outcome” is excessive and then undertake actions to correct it? This process-based approach takes the view that innovator populations make rent-seeking investments that continuously select among innovation regimes that trade off securing innovation gains (which tends to demand more property) against reducing transaction costs and associated innovation losses (which tends to demand less). If we can identify the conditions under which privately interested investments in lobbying, enforcement, and transactional arrangements are likely to yield socially interested propertization outcomes, then the underlying datum at issue—whether there is “too much” intellectual property—can be determined indirectly at some reasonable degree of approximation. This approach identifies a “property trap” effect where, under high coordination costs, the regime selection mechanism is prone to fail: litigation risk and associated transaction cost burdens drive innovators to overconsume state-provided property rights. Conversely, under low coordination costs, the regime selection mechanism is prone to succeed: adversely affected entities that rely substantially on outside sources for innovation inputs have incentives to undertake actions that weaken property-rights coverage, including constrained enforcement, forming cooperative arrangements, or even forfeiting intellectual property to the public domain. Counterintuitively, these relationships imply that large firms that rely substantially on outside sources for innovation inputs tend to have the strongest incentives and capacities to take actions that correct overpropertization outcomes. Preliminary evidence is drawn from the semiconductor, financial services, and information technology industries.
119 Yale L.J. 458 (2009).
The plenary power doctrine sharply limits the judiciary’s power to police immigration regulation—a fact that has preoccupied immigration law scholars for decades. But scholars’ persistent focus on the distribution of power between the courts and the political branches has obscured a second important separation-of-powers question: how is immigration authority distributed between the political branches themselves? The Court’s jurisprudence has shed little light on this question. In this Article, we explore how the allocation of regulatory power between the President and Congress has evolved as a matter of political and constitutional practice. A long-overlooked history hints that the Executive has at times asserted inherent authority to regulate immigration. At the same time, the expansion of the administrative state has assimilated most executive policymaking into a model of delegated authority. The intricate immigration code associated with this delegation framework may appear at first glance to limit the President’s policymaking discretion. In practice, however, the modern structure of immigration law actually has enabled the President to exert considerable control over immigration law’s core question: which types of noncitizens, and how many, should be permitted to enter and reside in the United States? Whether Congress intended for the President to have such freedom is less important than understanding that the Executive’s power is asymmetric. The President has considerable authority to screen immigrants at the back end of the system through enforcement decisions, but minimal control over screening at the front end, before immigrants enter the United States. We argue that this asymmetry, in certain circumstances, has pathological consequences that Congress could address by formally delegating power to the President to adjust the quotas and admissions criteria at the heart of immigration law.
119 Yale L.J. 548 (2009).
In the past generation, in countries in all parts of the world, using all different forms of constitutional government, a new form of separation of powers has emerged in greater numbers, what this Article calls “government in opposition.” After democratic elections are held, power to govern is granted to the winners of those elections—but substantial power to govern is also granted to the losers of those elections as well. This Article first discusses how this emerging regime of separation of powers differs from other major forms of separation of powers, and in doing so introduces a new way of understanding the major systems of separated power that the world’s constitutional democracies have created. After providing some examples and illustrations of how this new, government in opposition system of separated powers operates—and why it has proven to be so consequential in so many countries—this Article discusses how government in opposition rules have much to offer constitutional designers around the world. In fragile democracies and stable democracies alike, government in opposition rules can better constrain power and stabilize the core elements of constitutional democracy, better prepare all parties to govern effectively, more fairly involve all interests in the process of governing—and can do all of this at minimal cost. To illustrate this point, this Article closes with a discussion of how government in opposition rules might work in the United States, and how they might remedy some of the current political and constitutional problems that we face.
119 Yale L.J. 625 (2009).