Groups, Politics, and the Equal Protection Clause

Medicaid funding for abortions: the Medicaid statute and the equal protection clause.

The proposed patients' bill of rights: the case of the missing equal protection clause.

Following the footsteps of most other states, Massachusetts opened its Office of Patient Protection in January 2001. Established under what the media hailed as a “landmark” patients’ bill of rights, the Massachusetts legislature created a state agency empowered to review medical decisions made by health maintenance organizations (HMOs) that are challenged by patients. However, after opening its...

"No Distinction Would Be Tolerated": Thaddeus Stevens, Disability, and the Original Intent of the Equal Protection Clause

Equal Protection and Peremptory Challenges

The Politics of Investor Protection and Competition

External finance is critical for less established entrepreneurs, so poor investor protection can hinder competition. We model how lobbying for weaker investor protection reduces access to finance and decreases competition in countries where politicians are less accountable to voters. Weaker accountability thus produces a smaller economic elite. As empirical support for this result, in a broad p...