Behavioral Economics and Private International Law

This article explores the relevance of behavioral economics for legal issues in private international law. It finds that this relevance is limited. Choice of law problems in particular can be fruitfully analyzed with the neo-classical apparatus of economic theory that includes information asymmetries and externalities. Behavioral economics enhances our understanding of such problems especially because of phenomena such as status quo bias, availability heuristics, over-optimism and hyperbolic discounting