Nathan Atkinson

Assistant Professor of Law

Contact

natkinson@wisc.edu
608/890-2461
975 Bascom Mall, 7105 Law Building, Madison, WI, USA, 53706-1399

Education

Ph.D Business, Stanford Graduate School of Business, 2019

J.D., Stanford Law School, 2018

B.A., Oregon State University Honors College, 2011

Biography

Professor Atkinson's research studies the design of legal and political institutions. His research focuses on corporate governance, corporate misconduct, contract theory, and voting procedures.

He has published his research in both peer-reviewed journals and student edited law reviews. Some of Professor Atkinson's recent research projects include examining how prosecutors' concerns for collateral consequences affect their assessments of corporate penalties; estimating corporations' profits from violating environmental laws; and the effects of adopting ranked choice voting.

An experienced teacher, he has previously taught courses at ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and UCLA Law School.

Professor Atkinson joined the faculty in 2021 from the Center for Law & Economics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), where he was a postdoctoral researcher. Nate holds a Ph.D. in Business from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.

Scholarship & Publications

Law Repository

Activities

A paper by Nate Atkinson and Scott Ganz was recently deemed "a must-read analysis of why U.S. elections aren't working and what to do about it" by Edward Foley of Common Ground Democracy. Learn more.
Nathan Atkinson posted "Profiting from Pollution" on the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance. The Dec. 14, 2023, blog entry is based on his June 1, 2023, article in the Yale Journal on Regulation.
Nathan Atkinson published "Profiting from Pollution" in the June 2023 edition of Yale Journal on Regulation. The paper shows that the fines imposed by the EPA are often far too low, and that firms profit from noncompliance even after paying penalties. Read the paper.
Nate Atkinson presented on "Informative Social Change" on March 11 as part of the 2022 The Public Choice Society Conference in Nashville, Tennessee.