The use of precedents to create rules of legal obligation has, to our knowledge, received little theoretical or empirical analysis. This paper presents and tests empirically an economic approach to legal precedent that is derived mainly from the analysis of capital formation and investment. We...

An important question in the economic study of enforcement is the appropriate, and the actual, division of responsibilities between public and private enforcers. This question has been brought into sharp focus recently by an article in which Gary Becker and George Stigler advocate the...

Although the not-for-profit sector contributes greatly to aggregate output in many industries, there has been little explicit analysis of the economic consequences of applying antitrust policy in this sector. Despite the differences between for-profit and nonprofit firms stressed in conventional...

<DIV>Are the elderly posing a threat to America's political system with their enormous clout? Are they stretching resources to the breaking point with their growing demands for care? Distinguished economist and legal scholar Richard A. Posner explodes the myth that the United States could be on the...</div>

<DIV><P>On December 5, 2004, the still-developing blogosphere took one of its biggest steps toward mainstream credibility, as Nobel Prize–winning economist Gary S. Becker and renowned jurist and legal scholar Richard A. Posner announced the formation of the Becker-Posner Blog. In no time, the blog...</p></div>

Efficient legal rules are central to efficient resource allocation in a market economy. But the question whether the common law actually converges to efficiency in commercial areas has remained empirically untested. We create a data set of 461 state court appellate decisions involving the...

It is no longer a secret that a lawyer arguing a case before the Supreme Court is more likely to lose if he is asked more questions than his opponent during oral arguments. This paper rigorously tests that hypothesis and the related hypothesis that a lawyer is more likely to lose if he is asked...

This paper discusses problems in economic analysis of law arising from the increased specialization of academic practitioners of this subfield of economics, which takes as its subject a uniquely fluid, contestable, and inveterately normative subject—namely, the law. As a result of the limited...

In September 1998, the Judicial Conference of the United States abandoned its latest attempt to regulate the timing of interviews and offers in the law clerk selection process. This paper surveys the further unraveling of the market since then, makes comparisons with other entry level...

Milton Friedman combined the roles of economic analyst, advocate of specific public policies, and passionate public intellectual advocating classic liberalism, though largely on moral and political rather than economic grounds. Immensely influential in his lifetime, his star has faded in recent...