Weekend Links

Steve Levitt explains through quiz the disagreement over the SuperFreakonomics climate change chapter.

Paul Volcker and Bank of England Governor Mervyn King urge break up of big banks. Ben Bernanke and Fed Governor (former Georgetown Law prof) Dan Tarullo disagree. (HT: Calculated Risk, Mark Thoma)

NY Times DealBook: In Bear Trial, Prosecution Seems to Falter

Larry Ribstein on E-marriage and can bloggers be defamed?

Eugene Volokh at VC, Craigslist Not Liable For Prostitution Ads

Via Kenneth Anderson at VC, the FT reports that many universities are including tenured academics in their “jobs created and saved” by stimulus money numbers even though tenured academic jobs are already guaranteed for life.  The UC Office of the President, for example, has issued guidance saying that everyone paid by stimulus dollars should be included in the count, including tenured faculty members.

Daniel Hammermesh at Freakonomics with a clever experiment illustrating the difficulty of sustaining a successful cartel.

Henry at Crooked Timber on What Exactly Does International Law Mean?

Becker and Posner’s Uncommon Sense is out.  The book “gathers the most important and innovative entries from the blog, arranged by topic, along with updates and even reconsiderations when subsequent events have shed new light on a question.”

Kerry Howley at XX on “The Shriver Report:”

One of the nice things about living in an age of equity is that even women can read graphs and get excited about social science. We don’t need a Center for American Progress study presented to us as if it were a Redbook photo spread with second-rate copy.

Via Dan Ernst at Legal History Blog, The ABA Journal: 40 Years Later, ‘Chicago 7’ Trial Still an Iconic Event

Via Paul Caron, Learning about F. Scott Fitzgerald from his tax returns, at The American Scholar

Comments

[Steve Diamond]

I know of no university that does not reserve the right to terminate tenured faculty in case of severe economic hardship. Would that it were so.

[Kim Krawiec]

The tenured faculty have to be cut across the board, right? (i.e. closing the department) Or is that an urban legend?

[Steve Diamond]

Good question - I think that is a higher bar than most universities set. Today's FT had a letter that made the same point I did so this is actually an international issue.

[Alfred]

Quirk's article (American Scholar) is absolutely fantastic. Really exciting how tax records shape how we think a literary figure's life--and alter what everyone "knows" about Fitzgerald.

[Kim Krawiec]

You're right Al -- I was surprised at how drawn in I was to the story. Also the discussion of the move from pure "self assessment" was interesting (not surprising to our Tax friends, I'm sure, but was new info to me).