The Law and Economics approach to law dominates the intellectual discussion of nearly every doctrinal area of law in the United States and its influence is growing steadily throughout Europe, Asia, and South America. Numerous academics and practitioners are working in the field with a flow of uninterrupted scholarship that is unprecedented, as is its influence on the law.
Academically every major law school in the United States has a Law and Economics program and the emergence of similar programs on other continents continues to accelerate. Despite its phenomenal growth, the area is also the target of an ongoing critique by lawyers, philosophers, psychologists, social scientists, even economists since the late 1970s. While the critique did not seem to impede the development of the field, it certainly has helped it to become more sophisticated, inclusive, and mature. In this volume some of the leading scholars working in the field, as well as a number of those critical of Law and Economics, discuss the foundational issues from various perspectives: philosophical, moral, epistemological, methodological, psychological, political, legal, and social.
The philosophical and methodological assumptions of the economic analysis of law are criticized and defended, alternatives are proposed, old and new applications are discussed.
The book is ideal for a main or supplementary textbook in courses and seminars on legal theory, philosophy of law, jurisprudence, and (of course) Law and Economics.
Author(s): Aristides N. Hatzis, Nicholas Mercuro
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Year: 2015-02-11
Language: English
Pages: 375
Tags: Economics, Finance, Business & Industry, Law
Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 6
Copyright......Page 7
Contents......Page 8
Preface......Page 10
1 Norms and values in the economic approach to law......Page 12
2 Flawed foundations: the philosophical critique of (a particular type of) economics......Page 27
3 Norms and values in the study of law......Page 43
4 The dominance of norms......Page 54
5 From dismal to dominance? Law and economics and the values of imperial science, historically contemplated......Page 80
6 Beyond the law-and-economics approach: from dismal to democratic......Page 100
7 Functional law and economics: the search for value-neutral principles of lawmaking......Page 115
8 Law and economics: systems of social control, managed drift, and the dilemma of rent-seeking in a representative democracy......Page 132
9 Autonomy, welfare, and the Pareto principle......Page 170
10 Any normative policy analysis not based on Kaldor–Hicks efficiency violates scholarly transparency norms......Page 194
11 Law and economics, the moral limits of the market, and threshold deontology......Page 214
12 Moral externalities: an economic approach to the legal enforcement of morality......Page 237
13 Engagement with economics: the new hybrids of family law/law and economics thinking......Page 256
14 The figure of the judge in law and economics......Page 278
15 Behavioral law and economics: its origins, fatal flaws, and implications for liberty......Page 308
Index......Page 366
