This is a survey of the field of economic analysis of law, focusing on the work of economists. The survey covers the three central areas of civil law - liability for accidents (tort law), property law, and contracts - as well as the litigation process and public enforcement of law

In this article I first describe the basic principles that parents employ in disciplining their children. The description is based on a survey of parents, the major results of which are that parental sanctions are premised on wrongdoing--not on the mere causation of harm; that parental sanctions...

This entry for the forthcoming The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (Second Edition) surveys the economic analysis of five primary fields of law: property law; liability for accidents; contract law; litigation; and public enforcement and criminal law. It also briefly considers some...

This entry for the forthcoming The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (Second Edition) surveys the economic analysis of five primary fields of law: property law; liability for accidents; contract law; litigation; and public enforcement and criminal law. It also briefly considers some...

When would an individual expect that adherence to the law would advance the social good? This time-honored question is not only of theoretical interest; it also holds practical importance to the degree that individuals wish to further social well-being. In the stylized model on which I focus, an...

When is it socially advantageous for legal rules to be changed in the light of altered circumstances? In answering this basic question here, a simple point is developed -- that past compliance with legal rules tends to reduce the social advantages of legal change. The reasons are twofold:...

The conventional rationale for copyright of written works, that copyright is needed to foster their creation, is seemingly of limited applicability to the academic domain. For in a world without copyright of academic writing, academics would still benefit from publishing in the major way that...

Discretion is examined as a feature of the design of rule-guided systems. That is, given that rules have to be administered by some group of persons, called adjudicators, and given that their goals may be different from society's (or a relevant organization's), when is it socially desirable to...

The myriad uncertainties common to the process of adjudication--concerning evidence that opposing parties will present, legal issues that will become relevant, illness of witnesses, and the like--lead to two social problems. First, when unanticipated events occur, the information that parties...

This paper contains the chapters on litigation and the legal process from a general, forthcoming book, Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law (Harvard University Press, 2003). In chapter 17, I consider the basic theory of litigation. Here I describe the three phases of litigation: its...