Essays in Federalism

Cost-benefit federalism: reconciling collective action federalism and libertarian federalism in the Obamacare litigation and beyond.

Competitive Federalism in Institutional Perspective

Essays in

This thesis, which consists of three essays, uses empirical methods to study questions in criminal procedure and employment antidiscrimination law. The first chapter measures the consequences for offenders of expanding constitutional criminal jury trial rights. I study the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000), which extended beyond-a-reasonable-doubt jury factfindi...

Justice Brennan and Federalism

Fail-Safe Federalism

We explore the consequences for social welfare and the national political conflict of several key institutional features of federalism in the United States: supermajoritarian national institutions and permeable boundaries in the provision of by national and state governments, where the actions by the former can crowd out the latter. States with high demand for public good provision are better p...