Epidemiology Visualized: The Prosecutor's Fallacy

The “banzhaf Fallacy” Fallacy

Rewarding Prosecutors for Performance

Prosecutorial discretion is a problem that most scholars attack from the outside. What forces should constrain or guide prosecutors to pursue the right numbers and types of cases, rank them well, treat them equally, behave ethically, invest appropriate effort, and seek fitting punishments? Most scholars favor external institutional solutions, such as ex ante legislation or ex post judicial and ...

Why Should Prosecutors "Seek Justice"?

This article discusses how prosecutors should conduct themselves in light of the principle that has traditionally ben thought to define the prosecutor’s professional ethos: “the duty to seek justice.” Part I sketches the outlines of this concept, both historically and in its contemporary incarnation. Part II offers two reasons for asking why prosecutors should seek justice. Part III examines al...

The Risk-return Fallacy

We assume that in the world of business, higher risks are only taken when rewarded with higher expected returns. This supposition has been confirmed empirically using capital market data. However, accounting measures have yielded puzzling results: using the mean and variance of ROE as measures of return and risk, respectively, Bowman (1980) and other researchers find a negative relationship bet...

The Abstract Meaning Fallacy

rights provisions are valuable even if their contours are not fully determined in advance. They shape the way that political actors understand and articulate the values inherent in the political system; they shape the beliefs of political actors about what they can and cannot do, what they are fighting for and what they are fighting against. But rights are less valuable, indeed not really valua...