When States Go Broke

"Well-written and cohesive....Editors Conti-Brown and Skeel did a fine job ensuring that a diversity of perspectives were represented, both disciplinary (economists, political scientists, lawyers) and professional/political (academics, a union lawyer, a conservative think tank scholar....Recommended."
--Choice

Peter Conti-Brown is an Academic Fellow at the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford Law School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Conti-Brown has worked as a legal and financial policy consultant for banks, hedge funds, institutional investors and labor unions, advising on Dodd-Frank implementation, banking law and corporate governance. His articles have appeared or are forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review, the UCLA Law Review and the Washington University Law Review, among other publications. David Skeel is the S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is the author of The New Financial Deal: Understanding the Dodd-Frank Act and Its (Unintended) Consequences (2011), Icarus in the Boardroom (2005) and Debt's Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America (2001), as well co-editor with Michael Klarman and Carol Steiker of The Political Heart of Criminal Procedure (2011), a collection of tribute essays to William J. Stuntz.

Part I. The Problem: The States in Fiscal Crisis: 1. Fiscal constitutions and fiscal crises: a history Isabel Rodriguez-Tejedo and John Wallis; 2. Obligations without the power to fund them: the origins, consequences, and possible solution to the fiscal crisis of the states Damon Silvers; 3. Public pension pressures in the United States Olivia Mitchell; 4. Structural challenges in state budgeting Josh Barro; Part II. The Legal and Political Context of Public Debt: 5. What states can learn from municipal insolvency Clayton Gillette; 6. Market discipline and US federalism Jonathan Rodden; 7. American states and sovereign debt restructuring: lessons and cautionary tales Adam Feibelman; Part III. Evaluating Solutions: 8. State bankruptcy from the ground up David Skeel; 9. Fiscal federalism and the limits of bankruptcy Adam Levitin; 10. Extending bankruptcy law to states: is it constitutional? Michael McConnell; 11. Bankruptcy for the states and by the states George Triantis; 12. Labor and the states' fiscal problems: not the problem but perhaps part of the solution Catherine Fisk and Brian Olney.