Institutional Law and Economics: The Legal-Economic Nexus

This week, given the extreme circumstances surrounding the recent COVID-19 pandemic, we are once again deviating from our usual ILE content and leaning on the expertise of our in-house law fellow, Samantha Zinnes , to talk about the challenges local government has in dealing with the crisis. This brief interview was conducted via zoom on March 30 th , 2020. Relating to the law and this COVID-19 crisis, what can you say about the federal and local response? SZ: The problem right now is not necessarily that the law is flawed, but that we have a distribution of leaders who are unevenly using the law and the tools it gives them to their fullest potential.   We have a federal government with tools that only the federal government can use, but they are not being implemented the way states and local governments want or need them to be.   So the fact that we have multiple levels of government is a double-edged sword.   The states check the federal government by only allowing it cert

This week, given the extreme circumstances surrounding the recent COVID-19 pandemic, we're deviating from our usual ILE content and leaning on the expertise of our in-house law fellow, Samantha Zinnes , to talk about the power local government has in dealing with this type of situation.   The Power of Michigan Local Health Officials to Combat a Pandemic Disease By Samantha Zinnes, Esq. Early last week, Governor Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency as the first confirmed cases of COVID-19, an illness caused by coronavirus, were reported in Michigan. At the same time, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared this coronavirus a pandemic. A disease that is a pandemic or epidemic does not necessarily refer to the severity of the actual disease or the complications it causes. Rather, it more has to do with where, when, and how the disease has spread. An epidemic is defined as a clear increase in the normal amount of cases occurring in a community o

Given all of the news of the coronavirus or Covid-19, this seems like a good time to review ideas related to economics and public health and in particular a focus on how the ILE school would look at this issue.  The Covid-19 virus has raise all of our awareness regarding for this post, we will specifically explore what economists and other experts using economic concepts have to say in regards to what kind of economic good is public health. Starting in 2011 (although certainly there was discussion of this issue much earlier) there has been a vigorous debate about the role of government and public health as a public good in the public health ethics focused especially in the Journal "Public Health Ethics". While these concepts are no stranger to economists, their use by other experts can illuminate how we think about these issues. Prof. Jonny Anomaly wrote the first paper in 2011 where he argued that public health, defined as "attempt to promote health and prevent di