Kyle Logue - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Kyle Logue

$Research paper thumbnail of Smokers\u27 Compensation: Toward a Blueprint for Federal Regulation of Cigarette Manufacturers$

Although nothing is certain in Washington, sweeping federal legislation in the cigarette area is ... more Although nothing is certain in Washington, sweeping federal legislation in the cigarette area is more likely now than has ever been the case. Congress is currently considering several proposals for comprehensive federal regulation of the cigarette market, a market that has until now gone largely untouched by government intervention. Among those proposals, the one that has received the most attention, and the one that in fact motivated policy makers to look anew at the problems posed by cigarettes, is the proposed national tobacco resolution (the Proposed Resolution ). The Proposed Resolution, which has been advanced by a coalition of state attorneys general and tobacco companies, would grant cigarette manufacturers immunity from all class action and attorney general lawsuits and punitive damages for past harms in exchange for changes in FDA regulatory authority, limitations on advertising by tobacco companies, and $368.5 billion in payouts over 25 years

Michigan Law Review

Congress delegates extensive and growing lawmaking authority to federal administrative agencies i... more Congress delegates extensive and growing lawmaking authority to federal administrative agencies in areas other than taxation, but tightly limits the scope of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Treasury regulatory discretion in the tax area, specifically not permitting these agencies to select or adjust tax rates. This Article questions why tax policy does and should differ from other policy areas in this respect, noting some of the potential policy benefits of delegation. Greater delegation of tax lawmaking authority would allow administrative agencies to apply their expertise to fiscal policy and afford timely adjustment to changing economic circumstances. Furthermore, delegation of the tax reform process to an independent commission or agency offers the prospect of Congress committing itself to rational reform and long-run budget sustainability in a way that is more apt to succeed than piecemeal legislative efforts. The Article concludes with an analysis of the constitutionality o...

One of the most important components of the balance sheet of a propertycasualty insurance company... more One of the most important components of the balance sheet of a propertycasualty insurance company is the loss reserve. In spite of what the term may suggest, a loss reserve is not a pot of funds set aside for the uncertain future. It is an accounting entry, a liability on the balance sheet. More precisely termed the unpaid-losses account, the loss reserve expresses the amount the company expects to pay out in the future to cover indemnity payments that will come due on policies already written for losses that have already been incurred and to cover the costs of dealing with the associated claims. The latter category of costs, which includes, for example, the litigation costs associated with settling claims, is called loss-adjustment expenses. I If loss reserves were determined solely on the basis of pure insuranceaccounting theory, they would reflect only those factors that affect the size, frequency, and pattern of future claim payments and loss-adjustment expenses. Such factors would include changes in patterns of actual claim payments; changes in inflation rates, weather patterns, and technology; and, particularly

The Journal of Retirement, 2022

for helpful comments and Thomas Roberts for helpful background work. The views expressed here are... more for helpful comments and Thomas Roberts for helpful background work. The views expressed here are solely those of the authors and should not be attributed to any other person or any organization.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012

Insurance companies are in the business of discrimination. Insurers attempt to segregate insureds... more Insurance companies are in the business of discrimination. Insurers attempt to segregate insureds into separate risk pools based on their differences in risk profiles, first, so that they can charge different premiums to the different groups based on their risk and, second, to incentivize risk reduction by insureds. This is why we let insurers discriminate. There are, however, limits to the types of discrimination we will allow insurers to engage in. But what exactly are those limits and how are they justified? To answer these questions, this Article articulates the leading fairness and efficiency arguments for and against limiting insurers' ability to discriminate in their underwriting; identifies on this basis a set of predictions as to what one would expect state antidiscrimination laws to look like; and evaluates some of those predictions against a unique handcollected dataset consisting of the laws regulating insurer risk classification in all 51 U.S. jurisdictions. Among our findings is that contrary to the conventional wisdom state insurance anti-discrimination laws vary a great deal, in substance and in the intensity of regulation, across lines of insurance, across policyholder characteristics, and across states. The Article also finds that, contrary to our predictions, a surprising number of jurisdictions do not have any laws restricting insurers' ability to discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, or religion. It concludes by discussing whether this fact indicates that states have inadequately policed unfair discrimination in insurance or impacts the larger policy decision in this country to leave insurance anti-discrimination law to the states.

The University of Chicago Law Review, 2000

Public Choice and Tax Transition Debate found in a 1986 article by Louis Kaplow. 7 According to t... more Public Choice and Tax Transition Debate found in a 1986 article by Louis Kaplow. 7 According to that framework, the choice of an efficient transition policy turns, at least initially, on two general questions: First, what transition norm would optimally allocate the risk of a change in government policy, that is, the risk of transition losses and transition gains? And, second, what transition norm would give investors the optimal incentives concerning whether and how much to rely on any government policy?

Michigan Law Review, 2003

Terrorism and Crime and office contents, were insured under conventional insurance policies that ... more Terrorism and Crime and office contents, were insured under conventional insurance policies that did not (following conventional practice) exclude losses from terrorism. 8 The federal government did and will provide some relief for losses of uninsured private property, but this relief often takes the form of subsidized loans and is small in comparison with the role of private insurance.' The picture is quite different with respect to losses to public property. The largest such losses associated with 9/11 in New York City concern damage to the subway system in lower Manhattan.° The Metropolitan Transportation Authority claims that those losses will be covered mostly by private-insurance policies, with only relatively small amounts coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency ("FEMA") and its state equivalent to fill in the gaps. 1 " We suspect, however, that when all of the insurance claims have been finally settled and when all of the damages to public facilities (not just the subways) are taken into account, the amount to be covered by government relief dollars will represent a sizeable fraction of the total 8. This conclusion assumes that the "war risk" exclusion will either not be invoked by insurers or, if invoked, will be found by courts not to apply to the 9/11 attacks. See infra note 36. 9. In general, after a "major disaster" has been declared by the President (which comes only after state and local governments have responded and the governor of the affected state has requested a disaster declaration from the President), individuals and businesses that have suffered uninsured property losses or temporary job losses as a result of the disaster become eligible for loans from the Small Business Administration ("SBA"), and, in some cases, modest grants administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency ("FEMA"). When homes have been damaged, loans can be issued for up to 200,000andloanstoreplacedamagedpersonalpropertycanreach200,000 and loans to replace damaged personal property can reach 200,000andloanstoreplacedamagedpersonalpropertycanreach40,000. Businesses can receive loans up to 1.5milliontorepairorreplacedamagedproperty.Theloansmaycarrysubsidizedratesofinterest,buttheymustberepaidinfull.Individualsorfamilieswhodonotqualifyfortheseloans,typicallythosewithverylowincomesornocollateral,canreceiveupto1.5 million to repair or replace damaged property. The loans may carry subsidized rates of interest, but they must be repaid in full. Individuals or families who do not qualify for these loans, typically those with very low incomes or no collateral, can receive up to 1.5milliontorepairorreplacedamagedproperty.Theloansmaycarrysubsidizedratesofinterest,buttheymustberepaidinfull.Individualsorfamilieswhodonotqualifyfortheseloans,typicallythosewithverylowincomesornocollateral,canreceiveupto14,800 from FEMA in the form of one-time grants.

The Journal of Risk and Insurance, 2000

The standard policy is the formalization of a typical insurance policy, such as a one-year occurr... more The standard policy is the formalization of a typical insurance policy, such as a one-year occurrence-based commercial general liability policy. Such a policy, when issued, in effect obligates the insurer to issue what we call spot policies during the year to "fund losses as they occur. Insurers rarely issue individual spot policies outside of the context of a standard policy, although

The Yale Law Journal, 1998

Lniersiit ot Michigan Ia.% School for funding portions of our research. Special thank% are o%,ed ... more Lniersiit ot Michigan Ia.% School for funding portions of our research. Special thank% are o%,ed to Ste e ('role%. August flors'ath, and Andrew Ruffino, who each contributed significantl% to initial drafts of this Article h-malls'.. s, %.ant to express our deepest gratitude to Kathleen. Emil%. and Erin Ianson and to Ruth Ann. Hannah. Mull'. and Thomas Logue, all nonsmokers who have nesertheless generousl, borne icheir ossn share of the .oNts ot cigarettes.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010

as well as the participants at the 2009 Summer Tax Workshop at the University of Colorado and the... more as well as the participants at the 2009 Summer Tax Workshop at the University of Colorado and the fall Columbia Law School Tax Colloquium for their questions and comments.

In the broadest sense this is an article about legal or regulatory uncertainty and the role that ... more In the broadest sense this is an article about legal or regulatory uncertainty and the role that private and public insurance can play in managing it. More narrowly, the article is about tax law enforcement and the familiar if ill-defined distinctions between tax evasion, tax avoidance, and abusive tax avoidance. Most specifically, the article is about a new type of tax risk insurance policy, sometimes called tax indemnity insurance (or transactional tax risk insurance) that provides coverage against the risk that the IRS will disallow a taxpayer-insured's tax treatment of a particular transaction. The question is whether this type of insurance coverage increases incentives for illegitimate tax avoidance or, alternatively, provides needed certainty to taxpayers, certainty that the IRS is not able or willing to provide. Should tax insurance be banned? Encouraged? Ignored? To what extent should the government, instead of commercial insurance companies, provide such legal-uncertain...

Through private contracting, insurers monitor safety in ways that government can't. BY OMRI BEN-S... more Through private contracting, insurers monitor safety in ways that government can't. BY OMRI BEN-SHAHAR AND KYLE D. LOGUE L egal regulation of behavior requires information. Acquiring information about the regulated party's con duct, setting benchmarks by which that conduct is mea sured, and establishing the correct scale of payoffs for violating or following regulation are costly and require expertise and motivation. Thus, economic theories of rulemaking are often based on the relative information advantages that differ ent regulatory bodies have and how that information can be harnessed to enhance incentives and thereby improve welfare. Government regulators, on average, do not have informational advantages. They are not paid for performance and thus may lack adequate incentives. They are not disciplined by market forces and are only imperfectly disciplined by career concerns or by the political process. Moreover, they commonly lack the most advanced tools for information acquisition, aggregation, and prediction. Courts, for example, do not search for information independently, but instead receive only what parries present to them through the litigation pro cess, which is costly, ad hoc, and as a result often bypassed by crude settlements. Courts are also ill-equipped to recognize the distribu tion of characreristics from which any given case is sampled

Discrimination in insurance is principally regulated at the state level. Surprisingly, there is a... more Discrimination in insurance is principally regulated at the state level. Surprisingly, there is a great deal of variation across coverage lines and policyholder characteristics in how and the extent to which risk classification by insurers is limited. Some statutes expressly permit insurers to consider certain characteristics, while other characteristics are forbidden or limited in various ways. What explains this variation across coverage lines and policyholder characteristics? Drawing on a unique, hand-collected data-set consisting of the laws regulating insurer risk classification in fifty-one U.S. jurisdictions, this Article argues that much of the variation in state-level regulation of risk classification can in fact be explained by focusing exclusively on three factors: (i) the predictive capacity of the characteristic in question; (ii) the extent of the adverse selection problem created if the characteristic is restricted; and (iii) the extent to which discrimination on the basis of the characteristic is considered illicit. The Article concludes by suggesting that this implicit conceptual framework, which is embedded in the pattern of general and specific insurance anti-discrimination laws that have been enacted by states across the country, sheds new light on the nearly-universal state prohibition against "unfair discrimination" by insurers.

Iowa Law Review, 2004

for useful comments on earlier drafts of this Article. We also thank the participants in the tax ... more for useful comments on earlier drafts of this Article. We also thank the participants in the tax policy workshop at the University of Michigan Law School. We are especially grateful to Chris Sanchirico for his invaluable comments. All remaining errors are, of course, the authors' responsibility. 1125 1126 89 IOWA LAW REVIEW [2004] 10 What is important for this Ar ticle, however, is that the debate did not end there. In the mid-1990s, in what has come to be considered a classic article, Louis Kaplow and Steven Shavell made what seemed to be a decisive argument regarding the use of redistributive legal rules. 11 They argued that income redistribution is always more efficiently accomplished through the tax-and-transfer system, even if the contracting-around and haphazardness issues are placed aside. 12 The Kaplow and Shavell argument consists of several steps. First, they note that any tax on income will distort work incentives, in the sense that individuals subject to an income tax will tend to work less than they would in a no-tax world. 13 Next, they assert that the work distortion would occur to precisely the same degree whether the new income tax is imposed directly through the tax-and-transfer regime or 7.

20 / Regulation / SPRING 2019 M otor vehicles are among the most dangerous products sold anywhere... more 20 / Regulation / SPRING 2019 M otor vehicles are among the most dangerous products sold anywhere. Automobiles pose a larger risk of accidental death than any other product, except perhaps opioids. Annual autocrash deaths in the United States have not been below 30,000 since the 1940s, reaching a recent peak of roughly 40,000 in 2016. And the social cost of auto crashes goes beyond deaths. Autoaccident victims who survive often incur extraordinary medical expenses. Those crash victims whose injuries render them unable to work experience lost income. Auto accidents also cause nontrivial amounts of property damage-mostly to the automobiles themselves, but also to highways, bridges, or other elements of the transportation infrastructure. Finally, serious motor vehicle accidents often cause severe noneconomic injuries-that is, "pain and suffering." According to some estimates, such noneconomic harms amount to more than twice the magnitude of the aggregate economic damages caused by auto accidents. All of this may be about to change. According to many autoindustry experts, the eventual transition to driverless vehicles will drastically lower the economic and noneconomic costs of auto accidents. Why might this be so? Humans are bad drivers. People have bad judgment, slow reflexes, inadequate skills, and short attention spans. They drive too fast. They drive while intoxicated or sleepy or distracted. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, roughly 94% of auto accidents today are attributable to "driver error." The hope is that computers can do better. Fully driverless

Cornell Law Review, 1990

This Article adopts Calabresi's "general deterrence" approach , which "involves attempting ... to... more This Article adopts Calabresi's "general deterrence" approach , which "involves attempting ... to decide what the accident costs of activities are and letting the market determine the degree to which, and the ways in which, activities are desired given such costs. " Id. at 69 (emphasis omitted). It also "involves giving people freedom to choose whether they would rather engage in the activity and pay the costs of doing so , including accident costs, or, given the accident costs , engage in safer activities that might other wise have seemed less desirable." Id.

Michigan Law & Economics: Law Faculty Papers (Topic), 2015

This Article explores the role of insurance as substitute for direct regulation of risks posed by... more This Article explores the role of insurance as substitute for direct regulation of risks posed by severe weather. In pricing the risk of human activity along the predicted path of storms, insurance can provide incentives for efficient location decisions as well as for cost-justified mitigation effort in building construction and infrastructure. Currently, however, much insurance for severe weather risks is provided and heavily subsidized by the government. The Article demonstrates two primary distortions arising from the government’s dominance in these insurance markets. First, the subsidies are allocated differentially across households, resulting in a significant regressive redistribution, favoring affluent homeowners in coastal communities. The Article provides some empirical measures of this effect. Second, the subsidies induce excessive development (and redevelopment) of storm-stricken and erosion-prone areas. While political efforts to scale down the insurance subsidies have s...