The impact of government regulations on the functioning of markets is currently a topic of lively debate. In this paper we examine the effects of legislative and administrative regulations on the market for services provided by Chicago currency exchanges. Our findings suggest that the regulations stifle competition, with the result that the opportunity to extract excessive profits exists. And since currency exchanges tend to be concentrated in poorer neighborhoods with higher proportions of minority residents, the burdens of market inefficiencies fall on those individuals who can least afford them.

This article reports on research evaluating the impact of five Pennsylvania Supreme Court decisions on five Pennsylvania state agencies. Rational choice theory is used to explain several different responses to the judicial decisions: (1) initiating a search for more information, (2) conducting an extensive search, and (3) complying with the court decision and degree of compliance. The analysis demonstrates that the decision to initiate a search depended upon the agency's interpretation of the judicial decision as adverse. The extent of the search was related to the enforcement possibilities. The degree of compliance differed according to whether the agency viewed the decision as adverse and what resources the agency had at its disposal. In general, all of the agencies failed to comply actively with the state court decisions.

The following article analyzes the dispute between legal philosophers Ronald Dworkin and H.L.A. Hart over the nature of legal rights. The author argues that central to this dispute is a pervasive methodological problem of social theory, the “problem of theoretical perspective.” He makes use of a distinction between “internal” and “external” perspectives to defend what he conceives to be Hart's more fully social approach to the conceptualization of legal rights.

The transformation of law in the Yukon attendant upon the arrival of the North West Mounted Police and their successful attempt to eliminate the authority of the miners' meeting in the district is reviewed. In this instance, it appears that the symbolic as distinct from the instrumental functions of law led to the acceptance of a fundamental change in the character of local legal institutions.

The conventional model of the practice of law views lawyers as those who apply legal rules in the service of client interests, checked only by the constraints of the adversary system. A study of the impact of consumer protection laws on the practice of Wisconsin lawyers shows this to be an oversimplification. Lawyers for individuals tend to know little of the precise contours of consumer protection law. They most often serve as mediators between buyer and seller, relying on general norms of fairness and good faith. Lawyers for businesses are more likely to make use of the law, but they are seldom called on to deal with particular disputes. Lawyers' own values and interests are reflected in the way in which they represent clients. As a result, reform laws which create individual rights are likely to have only symbolic effect unless incentives are devised to make their vindication in the long-range interest of members of the bar. Moreover, an understanding of the many roles played by lawyers also requires a more expanded picture of practice. The picture of the lawyer as litigator in the adversary system may itself serve largely symbolic functions.