Post-Chicago Law and Economics

This is not another law-and-econ bashing symposium. Nor is the symposium\u27s title intended to denigrate Chicago School law and economics any more than the term Post-Keynesian economics was intended to denigrate the work of John Maynard Keynes. Instead, this symposium marks the fact that many practitioners of law and economics have moved well beyond the stereotypes familiar to most legal academics. Rather than designating an entirely new school of thought, the term Post-Chicago law and economics refers to a new era in which a variety of new questions about law and lawmaking is being asked and a variety of promising economic techniques is being used to answer them. Yet most legal academics who, like me, are not part of the law and economics movement are generally unaware of these changes. The purpose of this Symposium on Post-Chicago Law and Economics is to bring some of these new methods and questions to the attention of mainstream legal academics and others. The hope is that those who have shunned the economic analysis of law in the past may wish to reconsider their stance in light of what Post-Chicago law and economics has to offer. To facilitate this, the author uses this Foreword to summarize the new directions suggested by each of the symposium contributors, most of whom are practitioners of law and economics

Behavioral Law and Economics

Behavioral economics has been a growing force in many fields of applied economics, including public economics, labor economics, health economics, and law and economics. This paper describes and assesses the current state of behavioral law and economics. Law and economics had a critical (though underrecognized) early point of contact with behavioral economics through the foundational debate in both fields over the Coase theorem and the endowment effect. In law and economics today, both the endowment effect and other features of behavioral economics feature prominently and have been applied in many important legal domains. The paper concludes with reference to a new emphasis in behavioral law and economics on "debiasing through law" - using existing or proposed legal structures in an attempt to reduce people's departures from the traditional economic assumption of unbounded rationality.

Constitutional economics II

This paper is the sequel to chapter 7 (Constitutional economics) of the 1999 first edition of The Elgar Companion to Law and Economics (ed. J. Backhaus).Law and Economics, Constitutional Economics

Creeping Impoverization: Material Conditions, Income Inequality, And ERISA Pedagogy Early In The 21st Century

This Essay argues that the current trend focusing on the law and economics theory does a disservice to the full-spectrum of legal issues. Law and economics, according to the author, is a value -neutral approach to the law. It fails to take into account poverty and other social values when thinking about the law. Finally, law schools should recalibrate their approach and, in some instances, take social values into account when teaching the law

After the Great Recession: Law and Economics\u27 Topics of Invention and Arrangement and Tropes of Style

AFTER THE GREAT RECESSION: LAW AND ECONOMICS’ TOPICS OF INVENTION AND ARRANGEMENT AND TROPES OF STYLE by Michael D. Murray Abstract The Great Recession of 2008 and onward has drawn attention to the American economic and financial system, and has cast a critical spotlight on the theories, policies, and assumptions of the modern, neoclassical school of law and economics—often labeled the Chicago School —because this school of legal economic thought has had great influence on the American economy and financial system. The Chicago School\u27s positions on deregulation and the limitation or elimination of oversight and government restraints on stock markets, derivative markets, and other financial practices are the result of decades of neoclassical economic assumptions regarding the efficiency of unregulated markets, the near-religious-like devotion to a hyper-simplified conception of rationality and self-interest with regard to the persons and institutions participating in the financial system, and a conception of laws and government policies as incentives and costs in a manner that excludes the actual conditions and complications of reality. This Article joins the critical conversation on the Great Recession and the role of law and economics in this crisis by examining neoclassical and contemporary law and economics from the perspective of legal rhetoric. Law and economics has developed into a school of contemporary legal rhetoric that provides topics of invention and arrangement and tropes of style to test and improve general legal discourse in areas beyond the economic analysis of law. The rhetorical canons of law and economics—mathematical and scientific methods of analysis and demonstration; the characterization of legal phenomena as incentives and costs; the rhetorical economic concept of efficiency; and rational choice theory as corrected by modern behavioral social sciences, cognitive studies, and brain science—make law and economics a persuasive method of legal analysis and a powerful school of contemporary legal rhetoric, if used in the right hands. My Article is the first to examine the prescriptive implications of the rhetoric of law and economics for general legal discourse as opposed to examining the benefits and limitations of the economic analysis of law itself. This Article advances the conversation in two areas: first, as to the study and understanding of the persuasiveness of law and economics, particularly because that persuasiveness has played a role in influencing American economic and financial policy leading up to the Great Recession; and second, as to the study and understanding of the use of economic topics of invention and arrangement and tropes of style in general legal discourse when evaluated in comparison to the other schools of classical and contemporary legal rhetoric. I examine each of the rhetorical canons of law and economics and explain how each can be used to create meaning, inspire imagination, and improve the persuasiveness of legal discourse in every area of law. My conclusion is that the rhetorical canons of law and economics can be used to create meaning and inspire imagination in legal discourse beyond the economic analysis of law, but the canons are tools that only are as good as the user, and can be corrupted in ways that helped to bring about the current economic crisis

Contract law and economics: cycles and equilibrium in the cannon of north american legal thought

Abstract The dynamics of law and economics in the cannon of American legal thought was initially characterized by a denial of the independence of contract law, tailored by judicial decisions and the realist revolution. This paper shows that this denial begets the rebirth of contract law based on policy doctrines that asked for the turn to economics, by giving a new linguistic framework and foundation to contracts. After such process, an inconspicuous doctrine of contract law was built by the Critical Legal Studies (CLS) doctrine. Its effect was not constructive but deconstructive, but purposeless and proposeless. After the failure of CLS, law and economics consolidated as the actual base of US contract law.Contract, Law and Economics, Law-Theory.

Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992)(Second Edition)

This paper is the sequel to chapter 30 of the 1999 first edition of The Elgar Companion to Law and Economics (ed. J. Backhaus). A new section has been added entitled 'An application of Hayekian law and economics: the comparative analysis of alternative monetary and banking regimes'.Hayek, Law and Economics, business cycle theory, monetary and banking regimes, law-based macroeconomics

Book Review on Islamic finance: law, economics and practice by Mahmoud A. El-Gamal

This a critical evaluation of the book entitled Islamic finance: law, economics and practice by Mahmoud A. El-GamalIslamic finance; law and economics;Islamic economics, banking and insurance; mutuality.