Category: Law and Economics

Commentary, Law and Economics

COMMENTARY: Much Ado About Thinking Machines: Regulatory Paths for Policymakers

Karthick Arunachalam

Thomas Sarsfield, University of Missouri - Saint Louis -- "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'" So asked Alan Turing in his landmark research essay Computing Machinery and Intelligence in 1950. Six years later, at a conference at Dartmouth College in 1956, researchers would coin the term 'Artificial Intelligence.' At the time, many of the researchers believed a 'thinking machine' would reach human-level intelligence within a generation, and capital began to pour into research projects aiming to advance AI technology.

Commentary, Environment, Law and Economics

COMMENTARY: The CSDDD: Examining the EU’s New Supply Chain Directive

Karthick Arunachalam

Lilly Salus, Stanford University -- The European Union’s new supply chain directive is the first global law of its kind that aims to increase corporate accountability. Officially known as the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), the law targets companies that operate in the EU regardless of their nationality or subsidiaries. Companies that have more than 1,000 employees and a net turnover of at least €450m are required to take full responsibility for the preservation of human rights and the prevention of environmental abuse in their global supply chains. Concretely, this means that EU-based companies or non-EU-based companies that conduct a minimum level of business in the EU will become liable for the actions of their suppliers, including matters involving child labor and environmental issues (such as pollution and the loss of biodiversity).

Law and Economics

Market Effects of Court Decisions: A Case Study of Antiquities at Auction in New York and London

etang21

Olivia Zitkus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -- The changing legal landscape of the market for ancient art provides an opportunity to study the impact of legal constraints on economic markets. Working with novel data from Sotheby’s and Bonhams auction houses and court decisions from London and New York between 2003 and 2019, I look for the effects of legal rulings and settlements on the art market.