The salvage of historic shipwrecks involves a debate between profit-oriented salvagers, who wish to maximize profit, and archeologists, who wish to maximize historical value. We use a principal-agent model to derive the optimal reward scheme for salvagers, including a minimum duty of care in...

This introductory chapter to Economic Models of Law (forthcoming, Edward Elgar) discusses the use of economic models for understanding law. It also provides a survey of the contents of the volume, which consist of twenty-one previously published articles in the areas of torts, contracts,...

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the contents of the volume titled Research Handbook on Economic Models of Law, forthcoming (Edward Elgar).

The salvage of historic shipwrecks involves a debate between salvors, who wish to maximize profit, and archeologists, who wish to preserve historical value. Traditionally, salvage of shipwrecks has been governed by admiralty law, but the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987 transferred title of...

This paper examines how US and proposed international law relate to the recovery of archaeological data from historic shipwrecks. It argues that US federal admiralty law of salvage gives far less protection to historic submerged sites than do US laws protecting archaeological sites on US federal...