Talking law and economics at ETH Zurich

For years, academic experts have championed the widespread adoption of the “Fama-French” factors in legal settings. Factor models are commonly used to perform valuations, performance evaluation and event studies across a wide variety of contexts, many of which rely on data provided by Professor Kenneth French. Yet these data are beset by a problem that the experts themselves did not understand: Wi...

Disinformation is proliferating on the internet, and platforms are responding by attaching warnings to content. There is little evidence, however, that these warnings help users identify or avoid disinformation. In this episode of the Center for Law & Economics' vlog & podcast series, Prof. Jonathan Mayer (Princeton) discusses the study "Adapting Security Warnings to Counter Onlin...

In this episode of the CLE's vlog & podcast series, Prof. Henry E. Smith (Harvard) discusses his essays "Putting the Equity Back into Intellectual Property Remedies" and "Equity as Meta-Law" with Christophe Gösken (ETH Zurich). In his articles, Henry Smith argues that equity and related parts of the law solve complex and uncertain problems — including interdependent behavior and misuses of leg...

In this episode of the CLE's vlog series, Luca Baltensperger (ETH Zurich) discusses the study "Environmental Preferences and Technological Choices: Is Market Competition Clean or Dirty?" with Prof. Ralf Martin (Imperial College London).  In their study, Ralf Martin and his co-authors Prof. Philippe Aghion (College de France), Prof. Roland Bénabou (Princeton), and Prof. Alexandra Roulet (INSEA...

In this episode of the CLE's vlog & podcast series, Prof. Stefan Bechtold (ETH Zurich) talks to Prof. Saul Levmore (Chicago) about "SPACs, PIPEs, and Common Investors", a recent study by Levmore and Prof. Frank Fagan (South Texas). Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, or SPACs, have come to play a large role in bringing together small and large investors in the acquisition and expansion of p...

When machine-learning algorithms are deployed in high-stakes decisions, we want to ensure that it leads to fair and equitable outcomes. However, many machine predictions are deployed to assist in decisions where a human decision-maker retains the ultimate decision authority. In this episode of the CLE's podcast series, Prof. Talia Gillis (Columbia) and Prof. Alexander Stremitzer (ETH Zurich) discu...

Behavioral economics — arising from the insight that people make recognizable, systematic mistakes — has revolutionized policymaking. For example, in governments around the world, including the US, teams of experts have recently arisen to harness these insights, promising to do things like increase retirement savings. But there is a problem: Economic experts do not look or think like the rest of t...

In this podcast of the CLE's vlog & podcast series, Prof. John J. Donohue discusses the study "Right-to-Carry Laws and Violent Crime: A Comprehensive Assessment Using Panel Data and a State-Level Synthetic Control Analysis" with Prof. Alexander Stremitzer (ETH Zurich).    In their study, John J. Donohue (Stanford), Abhay Aneja (Berkeley) and Kyle D. Weber (Columbia) use indepth state...

In this episode of the CLE's vlog & podcast series, Prof. Sarath Sanga (Northwestern) talks with Prof. Alexander Stremitzer (ETH Zurich) about his paper "The Origins of the Market for Corporate Law", a study of the market for corporate charters and the emergence of Delaware as the leader of this market.    In his paper, Prof. Sanga assembles new data on 19th and 20th-century corporat...

In this episode of the vlog & podcast series of ETH's Center for Law & Economics, Professor Erina Ytsma from Carnegie Mellon discusses her study “Effort and Selection Effects of Performance Pay in Knowledge Creation” with Dr. Amit Zac (Postdoc at ETH Zurich). It is well-documented that performance pay has positive effort and selection effects in routine tasks, while its effect in knowledge...

In this episode of the vlog & podcast series of ETH's Center for Law & Economics, Prof. Laura Pedraza-Fariña (Northwestern) discusses her paper "A Network Theory of Patentability" with PhD student Margaritha Windisch (ETH Zurich).   Patent law is built upon a fundamental premise: only significant inventions receive patent protection while minor improvements remain in the public domain...

In this episode of the vlog and podcast series of ETH's Center for Law & Economics, Professor Alessandro Acquisti (Carnegie Mellon) and Dr. Naman Goel (ETH Zurich) discuss Prof. Acquisti's study "Secrets and Likes: The Drive for Privacy and the Difficulty of Achieving it in the Digital Age".   Paper References     Alessandro Acquisti - Carnegie Mellon University Laura Brand...

In this episode of ETH's Center for Law & Economics vlog and podcast series, Professor Melissa Wasserman (University of Texas) talks to Gabriel Gertsch (ETH Zurich) about her study "A Prescription for Rising Drug Prices: Patent Office Reform".   Paper References:   Michael Frakes - Duke University Melissa Wasserman - University of Texas   "A Prescription for Rising Drug Prices:...

In this episode of ETH's Center for Law & Economics vlog and podcast series, Professor Stefan Bechtold (ETH Zurich) talks with Professor Luis Aguiar (UZH) about his recent assessment of Spotify's market power by measuring the impact of its promotion decisions via platform-operated playlists.  Paper References   Luis Aguiar - University of Zurich Joel Waldfogel - University of Minneso...

In this episode of ETH's Center for Law & Economics vlog and podcast series, Professor Stefan Bechtold (ETH Zurich) talks with Professor Tobias Salz (MIT) about his recent study on the effects of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), using a novel dataset from an online travel intermediary. Paper References   Guy Aridor - Columbia Yeon-Koo Che - Columbia Tobias Salz - MIT Th...

In this episode of ETH's Center for Law & Economics vlog and podcast series, Professors Christian Peukert (HEC Lausanne) and Stefan Bechtold (ETH Zurich) discuss how privacy law interacts with competition and trade policy in the context of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).  Paper References   Christian Peukert - University of Lausanne (HEC) Stefan Bechtold - ETH...

In this episode of ETH's Center for Law & Economics Vlog/Podcast Series, Daniela Sele talks to Professor Saul Levmore from the University of Chicago Law School about his paper "Competing Algorithms for Law: Sentencing, Admissions, and Employment".   Paper Reference   Saul Levmore - University of Chicago Law School Frank Fagan - EDHEC Business   Competing Algorithms for Law: Sent...

In this episode of the Center for Law & Economics @ ETH Zurich, we are exploring what being innovative in the 21st Century means with Prof. Benjamin Jones from Northwestern Kellogg School of Management. Paper References: Age and Great Invention: https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/jones-ben/htm/AgeAndGreatInvention.pdf Decoding team and individual impact in science and invention: http...

In this episode of the Center for Law & Economics @ ETH Zurich, Daniela Sele is discussing copyright and creative incentives with Prof. Christopher Sprigman from NYU School of Law. Paper References: Copyright and Creative Incentives: What We Know (and Don't)  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3095740 Audio Credits: Trailer music: AllttA by AllttA  https://youtu.be/Z...

In this episode of the Center for Law & Economics @ ETH Zurich, Erasmus Elsner and Prof. Adam Badawi is taking a deep dive into the paper "Contractual Complexity in Debt Agreements: The Case of EBITDA" with Professor Adam Badawi from the Berkeley Law. Paper References: Contractual Complexity in Debt Agreements: The Case of EBITDA, joint work with Elisabeth de Fontenay  https://papers.ssrn...

In this episode of the Center for Law & Economics @ ETH Zurich, Christian Peukert is exploring " 3D Challenges: Ensuring Competition and Innovation in 3D Printing" with Professor Michal Gal from Haifa University.

In this episode of the Center for Law & Economics @ ETH Zurich, Gabriel Gertsch is exploring the book chapter " Intellectual Property and the Promotion of Happiness" with Professor Christopher Buccafusco from Cardozo School of Law

In this episode of the Center for Law & Economics @ETH Zurich, Erasmus Elsner is exploring biometric privacy with Prof. Matthew Kugler from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.   Paper References: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3289850 Audio Credits: Trailer music: AllttA by AllttA https://youtu.be/ZawLOcbQZ2w