Author Archive for dave-hoffman

Used Car Salesmen in Delaware

posted by Dave Hoffman

Vice Chancellor Laster just issued a 46 page opinion discussing which law firms should take the lead in In re: Revlon Securities Litigation.  It starts promisingly:

“When forced to defend their leadership role, original plaintiffs’ counsel approached the concept of candor to the tribunal as if attempting to sell me a used car.”

The opinion, which contains much more of this (directed at Wolf Popper,  Rigrodsky & Long, and Rosenthal, Monhait, and Goddess) is a hoot.  For those that think that Delaware judges just do expressive talk, here’s an example of a bit of bite with that bark. And I enjoyed the inferences made about the defendants’ “body language.”

Other coverage: WSJ Law Blog; M&A Blog.

  March 18, 2010 at 6:16 pm   Posted in: Corporate Law   Print This Post   One Comment

Milgram on T.V.

posted by Dave Hoffman

From the hyper-civilized French comes a new game show:

Game show contestants turn torturers in a new psychological experiment for French television, zapping a man with electricity until he cries for mercy — then zapping him again until he seems to drop dead.

“The Game of Death” has all the trappings of a traditional television quiz show, with a roaring crowd and a glamorous and well-known hostess urging the players on under gaudy studio lights.

But the contestants did not know they were taking part in an experiment to find out whether television could push them to outrageous lengths, and which has prompted comparisons with the atrocities of Nazi Germany.

The better analogy is Stanley Milgram’s Yale experiments, which were the direct inspiration for this show.  Though the article blames television’s “absolutely terrifying power” to compel obedience here, I think the result can be explained much more simply as depending on the power of authority itself.

Maybe we need an IRB for reality show producers.

  March 17, 2010 at 7:07 am   Posted in: Behavioral Law and Economics, Bioethics, Current Events, Empirical Analysis of Law, Law and Psychology   Print This Post   One Comment

Chick Sexers To Be Automated: Are Lawyers Next?

posted by Dave Hoffman

Chick sexers were famously touted by Dan Kahan because they can do something very hard — distinguish male from female chicks- but allegedly can’t explain well how they do it.  Moreover, becoming a chick sexer, like learning how to be a lawyer, radiologist, diagnostician, or other professional, involves repeated confrontation with error.  As Kahan explained:

“[T]he lawyer attains her skill – to recognize what she can’t cogently explain – in much the same way that the chick sexer does: through exposure to a professional slideshow, this one conducted by law grandmasters, including law professors but also other socialized lawyers, who authoritatively certify what count as good and bad decisions, sound and unsound arguments, thereby inculcating in students and young practitioners the power of intuitive perception distinctive of the legal craft.”

But now, it turns out, chick sexing is going to be turned over to automated (objective) pattern recognition machines.  As the Economist noted, this development is “sad for the redundant sexers … but you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”   It’s also, of course, bad for the baby boy chickens, who will be turned into pet food more efficiently.

More grimly, taking Dan’s analogy seriously, this is a scary reminder for lawyers, especially the kind who dominate the profession (i.e., transactional attorneys), that professional judgment can sometimes be automated, and must never be complacent.  The only thing that lawyers really have on those poor chick sexers right now is a very entrenched guild.

(H/T:  The Economist)

  March 8, 2010 at 10:41 pm   Posted in: Law Practice   Print This Post   6 Comments

Contracting (or Arbitrating) Out of Medical Malpractice Liability

posted by Dave Hoffman

Jennifer Arlen came to Temple on Monday to workshop her paper, Contracting Over Malpractice Liability, forthcoming in the Penn Law Review.  I was her commentator.  Prof. Arlen uses fairly traditional economic analysis, assuming that patients are rational, to argue that it not welfare maximizing to permit patients to contract out of the background medical malpractice regime.

The argument is fairly easily to follow. She argues that tort liability, because it is prospective and systemic, motivates providers to invest in precautions that are general and non-rivalrous: a collective good.  Thus, medical safety investments will be underproduced if left to the incentives of individual contracting parties, since each patient will want to free-ride off others’ choices to purchase “liability” from their doctors.  Moving liability to managed care organizations doesn’t help matters, it turns out, because it would simply permit the company to segregate between consumers who need liability protection (ones who are, or are likely to become, sick) and those who don’t (the young and healthy).  Under such a system, MCOs will package “good” health insurance together with liability, meaning that healthy individuals with a taste for liability coverage will need to pay a premium to access it.  This again leads to insufficient amount of liability protection over all patients.

It’s an important paper, not least because the form of argument may generalize to other kinds of contracting over private law.  Isn’t it true for most forms of negligence protection that the benefits are non-rivalrous and hard to exclude?  If so, permitting any contracting out of tort law likely results in a net loss of socially optimal deterrence.  Similarly, contracting out of civil procedure may lead to loss in societal benefits (like, for example, the litigation-generated-spillovers resulting from more information about the content and operation of legal rules.)  That said, as I commented to Prof. Arlen, it’s not clear whether she really maintains that patients are rational maximizers, since some of the argument relies on facts about the world (e.g., bad monitoring by insurance companies, insufficient lawsuits) that are difficult to square with rational choice theory. Also, what does medical error mean anyway?

I thought it would be worthwhile to bring this paper to your attention, since we’re living in a world where contract law’s dominance over torts is becoming ever more evident.  As this law firm circular points out, doctors are requiring patients to sign enforceable arbitration clauses.  It’s my sense that the bleak view that Arlen’s paper gives of contracting out of liability entirely also extends to such agreements.

*Whether they are a true public good or rather a club good is a little bit obscure in the paper.

  February 24, 2010 at 12:10 pm   Posted in: Articles and Books, Behavioral Law and Economics, Consumer Protection Law, Contract Law & Beyond, Economic Analysis of Law, Law and Psychology, Tort Law   Print This Post   4 Comments

Spurning Free Kisses and the Iron Laws of Behavioral Psychology

posted by Dave Hoffman

In Free, The Future of a Radical Price, Chris Anderson leverages a few behavioral psychology experiments to assert that companies ought to embrace free distribution as a business model.  In particular, he highlight’s Dan Ariely’s work with Hershey kisses.  As Malcolm Gladwell explained Arielly’s work in his review of Free:

Ariely offered a group of subjects a choice between two kinds of chocolate—Hershey’s Kisses, for one cent, and Lindt truffles, for fifteen cents. Three-quarters of the subjects chose the truffles. Then he redid the experiment, reducing the price of both chocolates by one cent. The Kisses were now free. What happened? The order of preference was reversed. Sixty-nine per cent of the subjects chose the Kisses. The price difference between the two chocolates was exactly the same, but that magic word “free” has the power to create a consumer stampede.

On this narrow reed Anderson concludes that free goods create extraordinary psychic effects.  Both Gladwell and Matt Yglesias, otherwise quite critical of Anderson, embrace the point.  Ygelesias argues that companies will compete away any behavioral effects, and that costs will never actually get to zero.  He observes that, “the whole subject could stand to benefit from a little less good writing and a bit more plodding distinction-drawing.”

Well, I think I am well qualified to be a worse writer than Malcolm Gladwell, so I’ll try plodding for a bit.  To begin with, folks should read the paper.  It offers a readable description of the experimental series.  Or, if you’ve a copy of Ariely’ book, he apparently synopsizes the results.  After you’ve read the paper, return here for three quick questions about the general applicability of Ariely’s work:

First, we don’t know whether those effects are robust.  Even if companies aren’t well-situated to compete away the “free” bonus, is it a universal attribute of human cognition, or something contingent and culturally fleeting?  My sense is that the modern economy makes it much harder for ordinary consumers to know the worth/value of goods.  (I bet this is testable: have people gotten worse, as I’d guess, at the “Final Showcase” estimates at the Price is Right over time?)

Second, will the result will hold up against debiasing?  Most of the studies conducted involved relatively quick decisions in an noisy environment (a school cafeteria).  Would you get the same result if you told people about the “free effect” before exposing them to the choice? I tend to think not — doesn’t engaging in this kind of behavior make the subject into a bit of a sucker?

Third, what about heterogeneity? Ariely doesn’t tell us much about individuals who continued to prefer truffles.  Are the different demographically from the switching individuals?  There’s a very strong nomothetic theme in Ariely’s work (like most BLE work).  But not all individuals fall prey to the pull of free goods.  Maybe we ought to study those who don’t want kisses, before we reform our marketing (and our law) to exploit (or protect) those that do.

  February 18, 2010 at 8:21 pm   Posted in: Behavioral Law and Economics, Consumer Protection Law   Print This Post   One Comment

Law School Rescue! (Information Needed)

posted by Dave Hoffman

In Temple’s coffee shop this morning I found an advertisement for “LawSchoolRescue.com”, which promises to help students who feel like they are “drowning” by providing a “secret way to breeze through law school.”  As the website and flier describe, the course promises to help you:

• “Turn the tables on your professors so they sound unprepared
• Do a fraction of the work your classmates are doing — and get better grades
• Find and use software that will give you the advantage
• Make Law School even easier with a proven method to prepare yourself mentally
• Study for the bar in a way your classmates can’t
• Learn the secrets that exam writers don’t want you to know”

There’s tons to like here.  I would love to know the secret to taking an exam (which if I knew I wouldn’t want my students to know.  Is it coherence?  Proper weighting?  Bribes?) And who wouldn’t want to do less work and get better grades?  Of course, to get access to these secrets, there’s a small price: $29.95 plus $6.95 shipping, though the price is only available to the first 100 customers, “after which the price will increase.”  This sort of deterred me.  What if I had already missed the rush, and was the 101th customer?  What if the course cost more than I could pay, leaving me without the secret?  I’d feel very sad.

So I figured I throw it out there and ask you folks. Has anyone signed up for the course?  Can you tell me what my students can do to turn the tables on me, rarely work, get good grades, and feel good about law school?  What’s the secret sauce?

  February 17, 2010 at 11:08 am   Posted in: Law School   Print This Post   6 Comments

Digging Out With Kurz v. Holbrook

posted by Dave Hoffman

Like many east coasters, I’ve been spending the last few days digging out of the remains of snowmageddon.  If you, like me, are looking for a break, check out V.C. J. Travis Laster’s just released opinion in Kurtz v.Holbrook, CA No. 5019-VCL (De. Chanc. Feb. 9, 2010).  The newly appointed Vice Chancellor is an lucid writer, and this opinion is no exception.  The basic question concerns the propriety of certain actions taken to change the governance of a company called EMAK, which resulted in a nasty public fight. The opinion offers a very clear description of how a modern proxy fight works, and makes new law on the status of depository shares and vote buying.   For more, check out Pileggi’s summary.

VC Laster clearly admires VC Strine, adopting his term “corporate law traditionalist”  on page 54.  Indeed, in another recent opinion, Laster used (for the first time I’d heard of) the word “dilate” to mean “spend extra time or words on”. A Strine-ian move if I’ve ever seen one!

  February 11, 2010 at 12:34 pm   Posted in: Corporate Law   Print This Post   No Comments

posted by Dave Hoffman

Bob Joffe, a great lawyer, CSM’s former managing partner, counselor to Time, and a truly decent person, has died. (DH)

  January 31, 2010 at 1:56 pm   Posted in: Asides   Print This Post   No Comments

Movies Inspired By Law Review Articles

posted by Dave Hoffman

Gerard’s post about the worst movie about constitutional law inspires me to ask the following question: has there ever been a movie inspired by a law review article?  I can think of at least one book (by a law professor) that inspired a movie (on television).  But I can’t think of an article in a student-edited journal that inspired a wide-screen release. Can you?

  January 26, 2010 at 3:30 pm   Posted in: Law School (Law Reviews), Weird   Print This Post   3 Comments

Start-Up Nation: The Case of Israeli Academics

posted by Dave Hoffman

I just finished reading Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle by Dan Senor and Saul Singer.  The book, profiled and summarized by the Freakonomics blog here, attributes Israel’s recent economic growth spurt (led by high-tech firms) to cultural forces: (1) a distaste for hierarchy (chutzpah) and a tolerance for failure; (2) social capital created by a unique military training and experience; and (3) an educated populace, driven by immigrants. The book is a great read, and worth study by folks who are interested in innovation and growth.

A question the book did not answer (but raised) was whether the same cultural forces explain the tremendous (relative) success of Israeli academics.  Chutzpah, military flexibility, and immigration wouldn’t seem well-matched to generating cloistered, risk-averse, academics.  But Israeli academics are seemingly everywhere in the States these days — especially in law. Are they out-competing American JDs because the served in the IDF?

A contrary story I’ve heard is contingent and personal.  A few super-mentors (like Bebchuck) have created opportunities for dozens of younger folks to succeed.  That, coupled with reported wage stagnation in Israeli law schools, has created a steady supply of Israelis to American law schools.  They are largely clustered in a very hot research area (behavioral law and economics), so are doing quite well.
So what explains the Israeli law professor miracle?  Contingency? Or culture?

  January 22, 2010 at 6:49 pm   Posted in: Book Reviews   Print This Post   No Comments

“I’ve Created a Very Large Microwave . . . And New Year’s Eve I Intend to Enter That Very Large Chamber . . .”

posted by Dave Hoffman

Many professors have turned of late to survey research, which promise to answer long-standing questions about individuals’ relationships with legal institutions and their understanding of the law. Occasionally, if you run these kinds of surveys, you’ll see respondents who aren’t quite taking the task as seriously as you might want them to.   Listen to this pretty awesome recording, and try to figure out what the survey was designed to accomplish.  Regardless, it’s probably a good general rule, in designing such surveys, not to call longmont potion castle.

(H/T: Noted surveyor D.B.)

  January 19, 2010 at 4:50 pm   Posted in: Behavioral Law and Economics, Empirical Analysis of Law, Sociology of Law   Print This Post   One Comment

What Do Judges Want?

posted by Dave Hoffman

Choi, Gulati and Posner have just posted a really important addition to the “What Do Judges Want” canon: What Do Federal District Judges Want? An Analysis of Publications, Citations, and Reversals. From the abstract:

We report evidence from a dataset of federal district judges from 2001 to 2002 that district judges adjust their opinion-writing practices to minimize their workload while maximizing their reputation and chance for elevation to a higher court. District judges in circuits with politically uniform circuit judges are better able to predict what opinions will get affirmed by the circuit court, leading to higher publication rates and a higher affirmance rate. In contrast, district judges in circuits with politically diverse circuit judges are less able to predict the preferences of the reviewing circuit court panel, leading district judges to publish fewer but higher quality opinions in an effort to maximize their affirmance rate.

This work fits well in a line of new scholarship that treats district judges as more concerned with reversal than ideology.  Not surprisingly, I think the paper is great, though there are a few variables I wish they had included that they did not.  Check it out.

  January 18, 2010 at 12:13 pm   Posted in: Uncategorized   Print This Post   No Comments

The Academic Destiny of Educated, Irreligious, Jewish, Tolerant Non-Capitalists

posted by Dave Hoffman

A sure-to-be-blogged article from the NYT hypes the purported findings from the paper “Why Are Professors Liberal.”  According to the Times, the paper (by Fosse/Gross), the paper uses

“data from the General Social Survey of opinions and social behaviors and compare professors with the rest of Americans . . . to [link] … to the broader question of why some occupations — just like ethnic groups or religions — have a clear political hue. Using an econometric technique, they were then able to test which of the theories frequently bandied about were supported by evidence and which were not . . . The academic profession ‘has acquired such a strong reputation for liberalism and secularism that over the last 35 years few politically or religiously conservative students, but many liberal and secular ones, have formed the aspiration to become professors’.”

The theory is plausible — indeed, it is often advanced by those who deny that intentional discrimination has caused the political inbalance in the faculty lounge.  But as the paper admits, and the Times neglects to mention, the data collected – “provide[s] no direct evidence that [the] theory of professorial liberalism is correct.” (p. 50).  Rather, it draws on other studies, which used surveys to argue that conservatives students did not want to emulate their professors (while liberals did).  That, combined with the clustered cultural characteristics strongly associated with being an academic, lends some support to the selection hypothesis.  But it’s not a true test of the hypothesis.  Indeed, I don’t know how you could test such a selection hypothesis cleanly with observational data.

Moreover, I think the paper understates the role that intentional selection plays: the more time I’ve spent in as an academic, the less sure I am that high education’s anti-conservative tilt  is benign or situational.  (That said, I continue to think that conservative scholarship by pre-hiring candidates places over its weight.)

  January 18, 2010 at 11:53 am   Posted in: Education, Empirical Analysis of Law, Employment Law, Law School (Hiring & Laterals)   Print This Post   One Comment

Collecting Data About Small Law Firms

posted by Dave Hoffman

I’d like to collect some information about a set of small law firms — how many lawyers they employ, perceived skill,  expertise, revenues, etc.  I would put the data to use as independent variables in a regression predicting a kinds of structuring of plaintiffs’ complaints.   If the firms were large, obviously I could go easily to one of the AMLaw lists.  But small firms are harder to track down.  Does anyone know of a central clearinghouse for small firm data, that would permit me to not simply go to each firm’s website (or call them)?

  January 16, 2010 at 12:26 pm   Posted in: Economic Analysis of Law, Empirical Analysis of Law, Law Practice   Print This Post   2 Comments

Transactional Teaching Conference Update

posted by Dave Hoffman

I previously posted on Emory’s Transactional Teaching Conference.  I’m now informed that:

[T]here was a problem with the Call for Proposals online submission process. As a result, any proposal that was previously submitted has not been received. The technical team has corrected the problem and the new call for proposals form [is here.]

If you previously submitted a proposal, please resubmit it using the link above. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and look forward to your participation in  the conference.

  January 16, 2010 at 12:10 pm   Posted in: Uncategorized   Print This Post   No Comments

Penalty Clauses and the Nexus One

posted by Dave Hoffman

Tech blogs are astir today at the fine print in Google’s Nexus One’s terms of sale. Turns out, if you buy a subsidized phone through google and cancel your phone contract “early”, not only must you pay a fee to the carrier, but google also wants you to pay it the difference between the list price of the phone and the sale price.

“You agree to pay Google an equipment subsidy recovery fee (the “Equipment Recovery Fee”) equal to the difference between the full price of the Nexus handheld device without service plan and the price you paid for the Nexus handheld device if you cancel your wireless plan prior to 120 days of continuous wireless service. For example, if the full price of the Nexus handheld device without service plan was $529 USD and the price you paid for the Nexus handheld device was $179 USD with a service plan, the Equipment Recovery Fee you pay will be $350 USD in the event you cancel within the first 120 days of carrier service . . . You authorize Google to charge the Equipment Recovery Fee directly to your credit card, or other payment method used to purchase the Nexus handheld device, upon cancellation of your wireless plan . . .

You agree that the Equipment Recovery Fee is not a penalty but is for liquidated damages Google will incur as a result of such cancellation. These damages may include, but are not limited to, loss of compensation and administrative costs associated with such cancellation or changing of wireless service provider(s), market changes, and changes in ownership. Please note that the Equipment Recovery Fee is imposed by Google and not your chosen carrier and is in addition to any early termination fees that may be charged by your chosen carrier in connection with termination of your wireless plan prior to fulfillment of your chosen carrier’s service agreement term.”

Notwithstanding the language of agreement that this is a liquidated damages clause, I’m pretty sure that customers could legitimately challenge this fee in court as a penalty .  As many have noted, customers will end up paying more in termination fees than the cost of the phone (since both google and the carrier can charge in this model).  As we all know, liquidated damages must be either a fair estimate of an uncertain harm, or be relatively close to the actual damages suffered by the promisee.  The harm here isn’t at all uncertain, and I don’t think that charging more than the sales price constitutes a good measure of the seller’s actual damages.  Notably, we can’t simply use the difference between list price and sales price as the lost expectation, since the sales price is inflated by the business model (sort of like health care costs charged by hospitals).

The collection method that google built into contract here is also a problem.  It’s a form of self-help which customers ought to be able to challenge with their credit card companies.  Indeed, the clause is so riddled with obvious legal issues that I started to wonder whether google wrote it seeking to take advantage of behavioral research suggesting that liquidated damages clauses change individuals’ feelings about breach.  What do you think?  Is google’s new slogan “Don’t be evil.  But if you must be evil, be really good at it?”

  January 15, 2010 at 3:02 pm   Posted in: Behavioral Law and Economics, Consumer Protection Law, Contract Law & Beyond, Technology   Print This Post   19 Comments

Overheard at AALS

posted by Dave Hoffman

Here are a few thoughts inspired by conversations I participated in or listened to at AALS (it’s not my fault that people persist in having very loud & irritating conversations over coffee, despite my dirty looks):

(1) A hiring committee chair talked about doing Google background checks on candidates for inconvenient facts. The rationale was that students would like come across pictures/stories themselves, and it was better to know than not. This struck me as an inevitable development, though sad.

(2) Many people complained about how the nametag culture at AALS encourages attendees to feel bad about themselves.  One solution offered was color-coded nametags that were keyed to the kind of social interaction you might expect.

Red: Individuals who, if spoken to, will inform you in great detail about a recent political fight on their faculty. Possible crazy. Avoid.  If you are engaged in a conversation with them, nod vigorously and say nothing.

Blue: Individuals who want a job at your school. Will laugh at your jokes and won’t look over your shoulder for at least two minutes. Engage as needed for a boost.  But don’t commit to anything.

Green: Individuals at schools you want to visit or move to. Will try to avoid you. Elevators are their weakness.

Black: Friends. Meet them later.

Orange: People who won’t deign to make eye contact with you.  There is no point in trying to hunt them down, except after they speak at a session, when they may treat you like a particularly dimwitted student.  Flattery will get you everywhere at that moment.

Purple: Members of your blog. Shouldn’t you know who they are?

Silver: Deans. Also known because they wear suits, and because they are looking at your pockets. Be careful. Their social skills are so much better than yours, that simply being near them makes you look more than ordinarily goofy.

Brown: AALS organizers, looking harried.  If you are outraged, consider engaging them at prepaid lunch over terrible food, when they are at a moral disadvantage.

(3)  I heard one professor telling another than she believed we were working “nine month” jobs since that is how the typical professor contract is worded (and since summer writing is rewarded through “grants” or “bonuses”).  I couldn’t disagree more.  Discuss.

  January 12, 2010 at 11:44 am   Posted in: Conferences, Law School, Law School (Hiring & Laterals), Law School (Rankings), Law School (Teaching)   Print This Post   6 Comments

Fantasy Author Writes Incomplete Contract

posted by Dave Hoffman

Pat Rothfuss, a subject of our Law and Hard Fantasy Interview Series, is running a charity raffle.  Most of the items to be raffled are of the traditional-but-fun department: signed books, selling a character name, manuscript drafts by him and others.  But on item is special: the golden ticket.  As he originally described it, the ticket (which would be allocated in a drawing), was quite flexible:

“If you win this prize, I will owe you one (1) favor. You can cash it in however you like.  You want your name in book two? We can do that. You want me to read your book and give you some criticism? No problem. You want me to attend your local convention, perform your wedding ceremony, or just give you a nice backrub? Consider it done. A few stipulations:  [1] The favor has to be legal. (More or less.)[; 2] It has to be something I can actually do. (Duh)[; 3]  I can’t make anyone fall in love.”

Pat has now re-thought this radically incomplete offer. In a more recent post, he’s offered a few qualifications- though still not enough, to my risk-averse way of thinking.  Now, just to really rain on his parade, what’s your view on whether the ticket is sufficiently concrete to serve as an offer under the Restatement?

  January 6, 2010 at 12:01 pm   Posted in: Uncategorized   Print This Post   One Comment

Eternally Contingent Truths

posted by Dave Hoffman

It’s pretty clear that the Obama administration has already delivered on own of its core promises of uniting Americans.  For instance, legal analysts left and right agree that the Constitution creates procedural structures (the senate, the bill of rights, etc.)  that need to be modified in light of modern challenges; that the Supreme Court ought not have the final word of what it means for a law to be constitutional; that we need to really worry about executive overreach; and that data – not bias – should drive public decisions on problems like global warming and torture.

The nitpicky fact that left and right don’t hold these truths as self-evident at precisely the same moment in time seems trivial, right?

  December 23, 2009 at 2:17 pm   Posted in: Current Events   Print This Post   No Comments

On Brains and Football

posted by Dave Hoffman

There are many candidates for the best visual display of quantitative information.  But how about a prize for worst display of information?  Call it the anti-Tufte. There has been some competition of late.  The graph can’t be merely misleading, or distracting. That’s too darn easy! A really bad display has several characteristics: (1) it has to overstate the certainty of the underlying data; and (2) by using pictures, it must reinforce our biases.  A recent example is the Obama Cabinet/Private Experience graphic.

Here’s another example I’ve been thinking about lately: the claim that offensive linemen are smarter than other players on the field.  Think about it.  Doesn’t it just feel true?  And here’s the graph that popularized the claim:

Ben Fry, a smart fella by all accounts, created the graph.  The size of the circles represent mean scores by position on the Wonderlic, a 12 minute, 50-question, intelligence test which players take during the combine before the NFL draft.  This graphic is often deployed to support the cliché that players closer to the ball have to be smarter. But closer examination has led me to believe that the claim – and the graph – are bunk.  And bunk of a particular sort: misleading empiricism of the sort that reinforces racial stereotypes.

Read the rest of this post »

  December 21, 2009 at 12:48 pm   Posted in: Behavioral Law and Economics, Civil Rights, Economic Analysis of Law, Empirical Analysis of Law, Law and Psychology, Race   Print This Post   8 Comments

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