Should law be provided centrally by the state or by some other means? Even relatively staunch advocates of competition such as Friedrich Hayek believe that the state must provide law centrally. This article asks whether Hayek’s theories about competition and the use of knowledge in society...

The overruling of prior case law is one of the most dramatic events in a common-law system, and the rate of overrulings is often considered an important measure of legal change. To measure this process more precisely, and thereby elucidate the relationship between legal doctrines of stare...

There is an enormous literature analyzing the choice between rules and standards in drafting legal directives. This literature typically focuses on public government-made legal directives such as statutes, regulations, and judicial opinions; it has devoted less attention to privately-drafted...

The economic analysis of civil litigation has focused on the action of the litigants and on the effects of substantive and procedural rules on their behavior. This chapter focuses on the economic analysis of procedural rules and how these rules alter the incentives of the litigants to file,...

The US patent system is a foundation of our nation's economy, encouraging innovation and growth. The exclusive right to use and license an invention provides numerous benefits to its inventor and to the broader economy. The patent system is not costless, however, and significant costs stem from...

In most areas, economists look to competition to align incentives, but not so with courts. Many believe that competition enables plaintiff forum shopping, but Adam Smith praised rivalry among courts. This article describes the courts when the common law developed. In many areas of law, courts...

The Biden Administration has signaled an interest in ensuring that regulations appropriately benefit vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. Prior presidential administrations since at least the Reagan Administration have focused on ensuring that regulations are efficient, maximizing the net...

The contention that consumers systematically “undersave” for retirement is a frequent example provided by adherents to behavioral economics and behavioral law and economics to purportedly illustrate their theories. Although frequently asserted, the claim that people systematically undersave...

The rise of “executive government” has prompted a great deal of public debate and scholarly theorizing. This article examines one aspect of that very large subject: agency budgets or, more precisely, revenues. To an unprecedented extent, regulatory agencies have come to rely on...