On Saturday, January 9, 2016, I will be spending the day at the AALS Section on Socio-Economics Annual Meeting at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel.  Among other things, I will be part of a panel discussion from 9:50 – 10:50 AM, Death of the Firm: Vulnerabilities and the Changing Structure of Employment.  My co-panelists will be June Carbone and Katherine Stone (I am very tempted to give up my 15 minutes and just sit back and listen to these two great scholars, but please don't use the comments section to encourage me to do that).  As I understand it, the gist of the discussion will be that while firms once supported a significant part of the safety net that provided employee health and retirement benefits, they have recently abdicated more and more of these responsibilities.  At the same time, however, what may be described as subsidies granted by the state to firms — particularly corporations — as part of a social contract whereby these firms provided the aforementioned benefits, have not been correspondingly reduced.  In fact, the rights of corporations have been expanded by, for example, cases like Citizens United and Hobby Lobby — suggesting a possible windfall for the minority of individuals best positioned to reap the benefits of corporate growth and insulation.  Obviously, competing interpretations of the relevant history abound.  Regardless, please stop by if you have the opportunity.  Continuing to beat a favorite drum of mine (see here, here, and here), I will be applying the lens of corporate personality theory to the foregoing issue and arguing that corporate personality theory has a role to play both in understanding how we got here and how best to move forward.  Additional details, including the entire day’s program, can be found here.

On Monday, January 11, 2016, I will also be participating in the Society of Socio-Economists Annual Meeting, also at the Sheraton. Program details are available here. Again, please stop by if you have the opportunity.