Federal Rules Research Articles

Political control and policy-making uncertainty in executive orders: the implementation of environmental justice policy

AbstractEnvironmental justice (EJ) has represented an important equity challenge in policymaking for decades. President Clinton’s executive order (EO) 12898 in 1994 represented a significant federal action, requiring agencies to account for EJ issues in new rulemakings. We examine the impact of EO 12898 within the larger question of how EO are implemented in complex policymaking. We argue that presidential preferences will affect bureaucratic responsiveness and fire alarm oversight. However, EJ policy complexity produces uncertainty leading to bureaucratic risk aversion, constraining presidential efforts to steer policy. We utilise an original data set of nearly 2,000 final federal agency rules citing EO 12898 and find significant variation in its utilisation across administrations. Uncertainty over the nature of the order has an important influence on bureaucratic responsiveness. Our findings are instructive for the twin influences of political control and policy-making uncertainty and raise useful questions for future EJ and policy implementation research.

Razing Hills: Repairing Military Rule of Evidence 413 in Response to United States v. Hills

In United States v. Hills, 75 M.J. 350 (C.A.A.F. 2016), the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) erred in categorically excluding charged misconduct as admissible under Military Rule of Evidence 413. Although CAAF correctly identified a constitutional error, their opinion swept broadly and precluded charged misconduct from being used as MRE 413 evidence in all cases. This paper examines the history and purpose of MRE 413 and its Federal Rule of Evidence counterpart. It also examines CAAF's error. Finally, the paper proposes either a judicial or legislative fix for CAAF's overbroad opinion, but also provides updated panel instructions to guard against constitutional error.

Improving the Mechanism to Examine Judgment Debtor’s Ability to Satisfy Civil Judgments in Vietnam from International Experience

This article provides an overview of current law and current state of examining conditions of civil judgment enforcement in Vietnam and points out that the main shortcomings are the lack of a court’s supporting mechanism and lack of strict sanctions imposed on judgment debtors and other agencies, organizations and individuals who fail to provide information on the judgment debtor’s assets. The article explores the mechanism for examining of conditions for civil judgment enforcement in several countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada and draws some experience for improving the law on examining conditions of civil judgment enforcement in Vietnam.
 Keywords
 Civil judgment enforcement, examining judgment debtor’s ability to satisfy civil judgment enforcement
 References
 [1] Council of Europe. 2003, “Recommendation Rec(2003)17 of the Committee of Ministers to Member States on Enforcement.” September 9, https://wcd.coe.int/wcd/ViewDoc.jsp?id=65531&Site=COE. [2] Henderson, Keith, Angana Shah, Sandra Elena & Violaine Autheman. 2004. “Regional Best Practices: Enforcement of Court Judgments. Lessons Learned from Latin America.” IFES Rule of Law White Paper Series, International Foundation for Electoral Systems, Washington, DC. [3] Hoàng Thị Thu Trang, Hoàn thiện quy định pháp luật về xác minh điều kiện THADS, Tham luận của Cục THADS tỉnh Nghệ An, http://thads.moj.gov.vn/nghean/noidung/tintuc/lists/nghiencuutraodoi/view_detail.aspx?itemid=13.[4] European Commission for the efficiency of justice, CEPEJ Guidelines for a better implementation of the existing Council of Europe's recommendation on enforcement, https://www.coe.int/t/dghl/cooperation/cepej/textes/Guidelines_en.pdf[5] Wendy A. Kennett, Enforcement of Judgments in Europe, Oxford University Press, 2000.[6] German Civil Procedure Code, https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_zpo/englisch_zpo.html.[7] Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, http://www.uscourts.gov/rules-policies/current-rules-practice-procedure/federal-rules-civil-procedure.[8] California Civil Procedure Code, http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codesTOCSelected.xhtml?tocCode=ccp[9] Procedure for enforcing a judgment: England and Wales, https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_procedures_for_enforcing_a_judgment-52-ew-en.do?member=1[10] British Columbia Law Institute, Report on the Uniform Civil Enforcement of Money Judgment Acts, 2005.[11] Học viện Tư pháp, Giáo trình Nghiệp vụ thi hành án dân sự (Phần Kỹ năng), Tập 1, NXB. Tư pháp, 2017.

Faculty Law Review Articles, 1894-2017 (Index)

A list of hundreds of law review articles written by faculty members on the subject of evidence — narrowly defined to include only those topics covered by the Federal Rules of Evidence or its state clones. Readers who find their articles missing should notify the author who will add them to the next supplement.

Impact of Gruesome Photographic Evidence on Legal Decisions: A Meta-Analysis

Gruesome crime scene and autopsy photographs are admissible evidence under the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) if their probative value substantially outweighs their prejudicial impact. Despite important methodological differences and mixed results from past studies, recommendations from the psychological literature have been made about the prejudicial impact of gruesome photographs perhaps prematurely. This meta-analysis investigates whether there is sufficient empirical evidence that presenting gruesome photographs in a trial affects legal decisions. The analysis of 23 studies and 4868 participants shows a small but statistically significant effect of gruesome photographs increasing guilty/liable verdicts or punishments, Hedge's g = 0.143, 95% CI: [0.055, 0.232]. However, this effect is significantly, Q(1) = 8.086, p = .004, and substantially moderated by an important methodological distinction: the effect is much larger when studies compare gruesome photographs with no photographs (g = 0.450) than when they are compared with neutral photographs (g = 0.077). These results suggest that gruesome photographs do increase affirmative verdicts, both through a small effect of gruesome content as well as a larger additive of having visual material. These findings help shed light on the mixed empirical results and suggest that important additional research is needed.

A Short History of Hearsay Reform, with Particular Reference to Hoffman v. Palmer, Eddie Morgan and Jerry Frank

Much of the history of the American law of evidence, including its most contentious issue, hearsay, is the story of stasis and reform. The case of Hoffman v. Palmer represents one of few cases concerning hearsay known by name, and illustrates that “false” evidence has often been used to caution against efforts proclaiming “radical reform” of the law of evidence. In this case involving a collision between a car and a train, the critical question was: Is the defendant railroad permitted to introduce into evidence the transcript of a question and answer session made two days after the accident between the engineer of the train and another railroad employee? If believed, a statement made in this session would exonerate the railroad from liability. Writing for a divided court, Judge Jerome Frank held that the absence of a motive to lie on the part of the declarant (the railroad engineer who gave the statement) was required in order for the statement to be admissible. Because such a motive could reasonably be presumed present, the engineer’s statement was therefore determined not admissible. Frank’s opinion was unanimously affirmed by the Supreme Court in an opinion written by Justice William O. Douglas. However, Edmund M. Morgan, Jr., law professor and prior member of both the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Committee on the Model Code of Evidence, vehemently disagreed with both Frank and Douglas’s opinions. Frank and Douglas’s decisions in this case, and Morgan’s opposition to the precedent those decisions set, incited considerable debate over the law of evidence and the issue of hearsay, and launched significant reform efforts. For these reasons, Hoffman v. Palmer is emblematic of the history of the American law of evidence, law reform, and the history of twentieth century American legal thought.

The Long History of “Truth in Lending”

Abstract:This article offers the first comprehensive history of the development of mandatory disclosure rules for the cost of consumer credit. In contrast to prior studies, which begin with the creation of federal disclosure rules in 1968, this story starts with state-level laws that were drafted before World War I. By looking back over a longer time period, it reveals the challenges involved in defining “truth” in lending, and how the perceived purpose of a regulatory technique like mandatory disclosure may change over time. Although the modern APR disclosure metric has come to seem natural and inevitable, history shows that lenders and policymakers once hotly debated the design of disclosure rules, with each faction claiming the mantle of “truth.” Moreover, policymakers did not always view disclosure as a means to increase price competition, obviating the need for direct price controls. Disclosure was once a complement to usury laws, rather than a substitute.

For People With Disabilities, A Fight For Access To Housing.

The City of Los Angeles continues to struggle to make available housing that is both affordable and accessible.

Legal Barriers to the Growth of Health Information Exchange-Boulders or Pebbles?

Although the clinical benefits of exchanging patients' health information electronically across providers have long been recognized, participation in health information exchange (HIE) has lagged behind adoption of electronic health records. Barriers erected by federal and state health information privacy law have been cited as a leading reason for the slow progress. A comprehensive assessment of these issues has not been undertaken for nearly a decade, despite a number of salient legal developments. Analysis of federal and state health information privacy statutes and regulations and secondary materials. Although some legal barriers to HIE persist, many have been ameliorated-in some cases, simply through improved understanding of what the law actually requires. It is now clear that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act presents no obstacles to electronically sharing protected health information for treatment purposes and does not hold providers who properly disclose information liable for privacy breaches by recipients. The failure of federal efforts to establish a unique patient identifier number does slow HIE by inhibiting optimal matching of patient records, but other action to facilitate matching will be taken under the 21st Century Cures Act. The Cures Act also creates the legal architecture to begin to combat "information blocking." Varying patient consent requirements under federal and state law are the most important remaining legal barrier to HIE progress. However, federal rules relating to disclosure of substance-abuse treatment information were recently liberalized, and development of a technical standard, Data Segmentation for Privacy, or DS4P, now permits sensitive data requiring special handling to be segmented within a patient's record. Even with these developments, state-law requirements for patient consent remain daunting to navigate. Although patient consent requirements make HIE challenging, providers' expressed worries about legal barriers to participating in HIE likely primarily reflect concerns that are economically motivated. Lowering the cost of HIE or increasing financial incentives may boost provider participation more than further reducing legal barriers.

Sampling for Individual Damages in Class Action Litigation

The 2016 Supreme Court decision in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo revived the use of “representative” or sampling evidence in class actions. Federal courts are now more receptive to class plaintiffs’ efforts to prove classwide liability and, occasionally, aggregate damages, with sampling evidence. However, federal courts still routinely deny motions for class certification because they find that calculations of class members’ individual damages defeat the predominance prerequisite of Rule 23(b)(3). As a result, meritorious classwide claims founder. In this paper, we combine legal and statistical analyses and propose a novel solution to this dilemma that adheres to the Tyson decision while satisfying Daubert, the standards of Federal Rule of Evidence 702, and the prerequisites for Rule 23(b)(3) classes. We develop a method and derive a threshold to determine whether class damages claims are sufficiently homogeneous to justify the admissibility of sampling evidence to prove individual damages. Relying on Daubert and its progeny, as well as other well-recognized authority, we argue that accuracy is an appropriate standard for evidentiary reliability. Then, using generally accepted statistical methods and standards, we show that, when judgment variability exceeds claim variability (terms we define), sampling evidence improves accuracy and evidentiary reliability and is, therefore, admissible in Rule 23(b)(3) class certification proceedings. We also recommend several procedures to evaluate whether damages claims of a putative class satisfy the derived threshold. We conclude that our proposed method to prove individual damages achieves the Supreme Court’s stated goals of Rule 23(b)(3) class actions, “economies of time, effort, and expense” and the promotion of “uniformity of decision as to persons similarly situated, without sacrificing procedural fairness or bringing about other undesirable results.”

Practical Tips for Ethical Data Sharing

This Tutorial provides practical dos and don’ts for sharing research data in ways that are effective, ethical, and compliant with the federal Common Rule. I first consider best practices for prospectively incorporating data-sharing plans into research, discussing what to say—and what not to say—in consent forms and institutional review board applications, tools for data de-identification and how to think about the risks of re-identification, and what to consider when selecting a data repository. Turning to data that have already been collected, I discuss the ethical and regulatory issues raised by sharing data when the consent form either was silent about data sharing or explicitly promised participants that the data would not be shared. Finally, I discuss ethical issues in sharing “public” data.

National Personal Jurisdiction

Personal jurisdiction has always constrained plaintiffs’ access to courts; recent Supreme Court decisions impose even more severe limits, especially in suits against nonresident foreign corporations. These limitations are magnified by the standard understanding that the relevant forum for purposes of the personal jurisdiction calculus is the state. The Court’s Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence relies on the state as the relevant forum, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in the typical case direct a federal court to apply the same test as would a court of the state in which it sits. This Article takes on the challenge of exploring the possibility of expanding the use of national personal jurisdiction, and thus revitalizing plaintiffs’ access to courts. In so doing, it undertakes three distinct tasks. First, it argues first that there is no Fifth Amendment Due Process barrier to national personal jurisdiction. Second, it considers the viability of national personal jurisdiction as to various categories of claims, brought in federal court and state court. It argues that Congress has the power to introduce national personal jurisdiction as to all claims brought in the federal courts, but that Congress lacks authority to introduce national personal jurisdiction as to any claims brought in the state courts. However, Congress could open the federal courthouse doors wider to claims where national personal jurisdiction is deemed appropriate. Third, the Article considers what steps Congress is free to utilize in order to implement national personal jurisdiction. While two steps are obvious—Congress can enact statutory authority and can convey authority on a delegate—the Article focuses on a more controversial path to national personal jurisdiction: the common law. It argues that, while federal courts may enjoy interstitial common-law powers in this area, they likely do not have broad powers to generate new instances of national personal jurisdiction.

The Hidden Power of Compliance

Although corporate wrongdoing can reach an immense scale with disastrous ramifications, holding boards accountable has long been perceived as elusive. Under both state fiduciary duty law and federal securities doctrine, directors and officers are liable only if they were aware of corporate failures or reckless in ignoring them. Since providing evidence of awareness or recklessness is exceedingly hard, corporate law scholars have long seen these requirements as raising an almost impenetrable shield over the board. Instead, we demonstrate that the evidentiary path to boards’ state of mind is nowadays more open than it has ever been before, due to the revolutionary growth of compliance departments in recent years. Corporate law literature has largely dismissed compliance as ineffective, fearing that in-house monitors would be too weak or too loyal to constrain corporate wrongdoing. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, we argue that legal and compliance experts’ reports and recommendations, especially if ignored at the time they were made, often expose the board to liability once misconduct is revealed. To support our argument, we turn to parallel case law developments in Delaware fiduciary duty law and federal securities doctrine in the last ten years. We show that, in order to better delineate board liability, state and federal rulings have raised the evidentiary standards, demanding concrete proof that directors were aware of ongoing violations or had received sufficient red flags. In response, courts turn time and again to internal reports by legal and compliance personnel, which are well-suited to offer the requisite evidence. We offer a systematic analysis of Delaware jurisprudence in the last ten years since the landmark Stone v. Ritter ruling, which shows how instrumental legal and compliance personnel are in guiding the board through the multi-pronged requirements of its monitoring duties. We trace similar developments in federal securities class actions under Rule 10b-5. Finally, we discuss a small but growing body of law which imposes personal liability on legal and compliance personnel if they fail to alert the board about ongoing misconduct or gaps in its oversight systems. The threat of personal liability further cements the position of these officers vis-a-vis the board. To show how these developments transformed the legal treatment of massive corporate wrongdoing in practice, we study four recent high-stakes corporate debacles: the Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal, the Yahoo cybersecurity breach, the General Motors ignition switch scandal, and the Washington Mutual mortgage meltdown. Our case studies illustrate that the choices legal and compliance officers make when communicating with the board end up determining its liability. Chief legal and compliance officers, we conclude, have become the leading corporate actors in ensuring sound risk management and ethical leadership for companies.

Impact of Gruesome Photographic Evidence on Legal Decisions: A Meta-Analysis

Gruesome crime scene and autopsy photographs are admissible evidence under the Federal Rules of Evidence if their probative value substantially outweighs their prejudicial impact. Despite important methodological differences and mixed results from past studies, recommendations from the psychological literature have been made about the prejudicial impact of gruesome photographs perhaps prematurely. This meta-analysis investigates whether there is sufficient empirical evidence that presenting gruesome photographs in a trial affects legal decisions. The analysis of 23 studies and 4,868 participants showed a small but statistically significant effect of gruesome photographs in increasing guilty/liable verdicts or punishments (Hedge’s g = 0.143, 95% CI: [0.055, 0.232]). However, this was significantly (Q(1) = 8.086, p = .004) and substantially moderated by an important methodological distinction: the effect was much larger when studies compared gruesome photographs to not showing any photographs (g = 0.450) than to showing neutral photographs (g = 0.077). These results suggest that gruesome photographs do increase affirmative verdicts, both through a small effect of gruesome content as well as a larger additive of having any visual material. These findings help shed light on the mixed empirical results and suggest important additional research needed.

The Legal Sufficiency Analysis of Genuine Battles of the Experts in Criminal Trials: The Unrealized Potential of the Supreme Courtts Landmark Decision in Jackson v. Virginia

This article addresses the ongoing dispute over the validity of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS). The proponents of SBS assert that even without an impact, the violent shaking of an infant by an adult can cause fatal brain injuries. The proponents rely on tens of case reports in which the infant died of brain injury and the evidence tended to show shaking but no striking. Many pathologists and pediatricians accept this theory. However, some biomechanical experts reject the theory. Their experiments indicate that without impact trauma, manual shaking of an infant cannot generate enough force to cause fatal brain injury. Although both sides of the dispute can point to empirical support, each side’s position is subject to doubt. In the case of the proponent’s theory, there are concerns about the accuracy of the case reports. A loving parent could easily repress the memory of an impact during the incident leading to his or her infant’s death, and a caregiver who had acted in bad faith would obviously have a motive to suppress the detail of the impact. In the case of the opponent’s theory, although the experiments can determine the force level generated by manual shaking, little is known about the brain injury threshold for infants. Medical ethics obviously preclude subjecting infants to the experiments that would be needed to validate an injury threshold. Many courts admit both expert testimony about the SBS theory and testimony criticizing the theory. It is understandable that the testimony on both sides has been ruled admissible. In its celebrated 1993 Daubert decision on expert testimony, the Supreme Court commented that even admissible testimony might be “shaky.” The Advisory Committee Note accompanying the 2000 amendment to Federal Rule of Evidence 702 expressly states that sometimes testimony about “competing theories” will prove to be admissible under Daubert. Although many articles have been written about the admissibility of SBS and its critiques, to date no article has addressed the question of the legal sufficiency of SBS testimony. The question is certainly now timely; in a trilogy of decisions dated 2007, 2010, and 2011, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit which had thrice ruled the evidence in an SBS case legally insufficient to sustain a conviction. The question not only concerns SBS; it also raises the broader question of the scope of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1979 legal sufficiency decision, Jackson v. Virginia. Some courts have read Jackson narrowly as contemplating that the judge conducting the sufficiency analysis will consider only the prosecution testimony. This article argues that Jackson mandates that the judge consider the defense testimony in the record as well as the prosecution evidence. In addition, the article contends that by restricting the judge’s inquiry to the contents of learned treatises admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 803(18), an expanded Jackson analysis can be conducted without usurping the jury’s constitutional rule under the Sixth Amendment. Finally, the article applies this mode of analysis to the SBS controversy and concludes that given the current state of the empirical record, standing alone SBS testimony is legally insufficient to prove causation.

Class action: a common form of representative litigation in the United States of America Special reference to the validity of class action waivers and class actions regulation under Spanish law

This paper is an introduction to the U.S. class action lawsuits under the Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Class actions lawsuits have been an integral part of the U.S. judicial system for many decades. This paper outlines both the benefits of this remedy and the main criticisms of it. It pays special attention to pre-default, contractual mandatory arbitration clauses and the validity of class action waivers. All this is viewed from a practical perspective based on real cases that illustrate the actual trends of the American Courts of Justice. Finally, it includes a brief analysis of the Spanish class actions to provide the reader with a general overview of this procedural device both under US and EU law perspective.

Failure to Contribute: An Estimate of the Consequences of Non-and Underpayment of Self-Employment Taxes by Independent Contractors, and On-Demand Workers on Social Security

Over the past ten years, companies such as Uber, Etsy, Lyft, Airbnb, Care.com and Rover.com have become household names by connecting service providers and sellers with consumers online and through app-based programs. And this work is projected to continue to grow, along with the technology-enabled convenience of accessing goods and services through apps on smartphones in this new sector of the economy (referred to as the “On-Demand Economy” in this Report). Although it is not new that self-employed workers have tax compliance and reporting issues, the existing reporting rules applicable to most workers earning income working with On-Demand Economy platforms (e.g., Uber, Airbnb, Etsy) substantially increase the likelihood that these taxpayers fail to contribute to Social Security and Medicare through payment of Self-Employment tax (SE tax). This Report sheds light on the Social Security implications of the current federal tax rules for independent workers generally, and in particular, workers earning income through occupations occurring in the On-Demand Economy through estimating the population and earnings of these workers using the U.S. Census Bureau redesigned Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Ultimately, we found that: • According to SIPP, approximately 7.1 million individuals were Independent Contractors and 3.12 million individuals were On-Demand Workers in 2014. • Using SIPP data, we estimate the collective earnings of Independent Contractors were approximately $204.1 billion dollars 2014, while On-Demand Workers collectively earned approximately $35.97 billion dollars in 2014. • Based on our review of SIPP data and existing measures of misreporting self-employment income, we estimate at least 3.1 million Independent Contractors underreported self-employment income in 2014. This underreporting would result in approximately $4.84 billion in unpaid SE tax, with approximately $3.92 billion constituting non-payment of Social Security contributions. • Using SIPP as well as existing research on tax compliance and information reporting for On-Platform workers and the self-employed, we estimate that as much as $2.51 billion in unpaid SE tax by On-Demand Workers in 2014. This translates to approximately $2.03 billion not paid into Social Security in 2014. • Our estimates of likely additional SE Tax owed by Independent Contractors generally and, more specifically by workers in the On-Demand Economy due to current information reporting rules, directly undermines efforts to fund Social Security and could translate to lower Social Security benefits for these workers upon retirement. While our estimates are illustrative rather than definitive, they are intended to highlight the immediate need for (i) additional research on the tax compliance of these workers; and (ii) legislative action to combat extensive underreporting of SE tax by these populations. The research on measuring these workers is dynamic, but there appears to be consensus that On-Demand Workers are a population that is hard to measure in terms of size, composition and earnings. However, even with conservative estimates on the underpayment of SE tax, there remains a significant—if not multi-billion dollar—probability that millions of the workers we estimated are not paying into Social Security. This a particularly acute problem for women, who tend to have greater dependency on Social Security and lower contributions over the course of their working lives. And this problem will continue to grow along with the digitizing of the cash economy. However, there are limited steps Congress can take to modernize information reporting, update quarterly-estimated payment requirements and to require distribution of tax guidance to help address these issues and further support the solvency of Social Security.

The Evolution of Federal Budget Rules and the Effects on Fiscal Policy: How Informal Norms Have Trumped Formal Constraints

Today’s fiscal policy challenges are rooted in the way that fiscal policy rules have evolved over the history of the United States. This paper demonstrates that two shifts of informal norms occurred in the decades surrounding the turn of the 20th century. First, public expectations shifted from requiring a balanced budget to instead using the federal budget to promote economic security at the household level and economic stability at the macro level. Simultaneously, norms for elected office shifted from temporary service to careerism, and the federal government became increasingly professionalized. Both shifts increased demand on the expenditure side of the federal budget while creating fiscal commons problems on taxation and appropriations. Through a series of legislative milestones, Congress codified both shifts into entitlement programs and macroeconomic objectives. The combined effect has been to exert relentless pressure to increase public expenditures through debt finance. Despite four decades of legislative attempts to constrain spending relative to taxes, the informal norms have trumped the formal constraints. Viewed through the lens of public choice economics, fiscal policy rules have evolved into a complex system of incentives that instill a strong bias toward systematically greater deficit spending, whether or not policymakers intend for that outcome to result. Furthermore, by creating intergenerational redistribution, the pattern of deficit spending is morally suspect. Reform discussions must recognize that today ’s fiscal policy challenges can be met only by addressing these deep changes in federal budget rules.

Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc.v. Unidentified Shipwrecked Vessel and Others

State immunity — State-owned property — Shipwrecked warship and cargo — Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act 1976 — Subject-matter jurisdiction — Determination of immunity from arrest and proceedingsin rem— Commercial activity exception to immunity — Whether applicable toin remproceedings — Treatment of cargo aboard shipwreck — Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) — Comity — 1902 Treaty of Friendship and General Relations between the United States of America and Spain — Relationship between domestic and international law — 1958 Geneva Convention on the High SeasSea — Seabed — Shipwrecks — Ownership — Shipwrecked warship — Whetherin remproceedings barred by State immunity — The law of the United States

SNAP Expansions and Participation in Government Safety Net Programs

Gauging the efficacy of safety net programs requires a good understanding of how the interactions between them affect the total benefits and costs of any given policy change. This paper investigates the interactions between health and nutritional assistance programs such as Medicaid, SNAP, WIC, and school lunch programs. Since 1999, states have been given much more flexibility to operate SNAP, and many states have expanded eligibility to include households with income and resources above the existing federal limits for SNAP. Exploiting this variation in SNAP eligibility across states and over time, I find strong evidence of program interactions: when a state moves from the federal rule to the most extensive SNAP eligibility rule, enrollment in free school lunch increases by 4 percentage points. I estimate that the federal government spends an additional 37 cents on the school lunch program for each dollar spent on SNAP due to the expansion. However, expanded eligibility for SNAP leads to a significant decrease in private insurance coverage for both adults and children, which is not fully explained by an increase in Medicaid enrollment. Exploring potential channels through which SNAP expansions affect participation in other safety net programs, I find evidence that automatic eligibility, and a reduction in employment, play a role in program interactions.