Happy Easter,

Here’s a Forbes column that I think is pretty important and simple… Providing better benchmarks is a pretty simple way to improve the world. If I found out that I was ranked in the bottom 5% of teachers at YLS or in energy users, I would change my behavior. Peer Pressure Forbes135 (April 11, 2005).

Here’s an draft article (which is mostly the excellent work of my friend Jon Macey) with a theory for the problems of economic development in the middle east, but it includes shocking facts about legal barriers to incorporation. (Syria’s minimum capital requirement is more than $58,000 to incorporate; in Saudi Arabia $132k; in Jordan $21k, in Israel and U.S. $0) Institutional and Evolutionary Failure and Economic Development in the Middle East, Yale Journal of International Law (forthcoming 2005) (with Jonathan Macey).

And finally, here’s a response to Rick Sander’s affirmative action article:

Richard Sander has highlighted that the law school grades and bar passage rates

of African Americans are substantially lower than those of whites. Sander attributes this

shortfall to affirmative action. He estimates that U.S. law schools would produce more

black lawyers if affirmative action preferences in admission were eliminated. Our

analysis raises several methodological challenges to Sander’s approach and our findings

suggest that the elimination of affirmative action would reduce the number of black

lawyers. However, we find that attending law school is a very risky proposition for many

black law students. In the LSAC data, 42.6% of blacks entering law school have less

then or equal to a 50% chance of becoming lawyers (relative to 0.3% of entering white

students). Does Affirmative Action Reduce the Number of Black Lawyers?, Stanford Law Review (forthcoming 2005) (with Richard Brooks).

If the links in this email fail for some reason, you can more find more reliable downloads at www.law.yale.edu/ayres/

Sincerely,

Ian Ayres

William K. Townsend Professor

Yale Law School

PO Box 208215, New Haven, CT 06520

203.432.7101 (o), 203.432.4769 (fax), 203.624.5654 (h)

ian.ayres@yale.edu