Economics In Legal Reasoning

This Palgrave Pivot is the first book in the field of Law & Economics looking at the relationship between economics and law in legal reasoning. The book constitutes a reference point for the economic analysis of legal institutions, as legal reasoning remains the dimension of legal systems least explored by economists. Despite their differences, economics and legal reasoning interact in many interesting ways. This book offers a fast track to these interactions. Both supporters and critics of Law & Economics will be exposed to a yet-to-be developed area of interaction between the disciplines. This book will be of interest to economists, legal scholars, and Law and Economics specialists, and can be used as teaching material in courses on Law & Economics and legal reasoning as well.

Responding to the growing importance of economic reasoning in legal scholarship, this innovative work provides an essential introduction to the economic tools which can usefully be employed in legal reasoning. It is geared specifically towards those without a great deal of exposure to economic thinking and provides law students, legal scholars and practitioners with a practical toolbox to shape their writing, understanding and case preparation. The book’s clear focus on economic methods poses a refreshing change to conventional textbooks in this area, which tend to focus on content-related theories. Recognising that it is often difficult to derive adequate conclusions for legal arguments without first understanding the methodological limitations of economic studies, this book provides a comprehensive coverage of the most important economic concepts in order to bridge this gap. These include: • game theory • public choice and social choice theory • behavioural economics • empirical research design • basic statistics. Owing to its concise and accessible style, Economic Methods for Lawyers will provide an invaluable companion for legal scholars or practitioners who wish to utilise economic methods for developing legal argument.

First published in 1998. This five-volume series contains some of this century's most influential or thought provoking articles on the subject of legal argument that have appeared in Anglo-American philosophy journals and law reviews. This volume offers a collection of essays by philosophers and legal scholars on economics, artificial intelligence and the physical sciences.

This insightful single-volume compilation brings together the most important contemporary work by experts in the economic analysis of legal reasoning and interpretation. The collection explores a wide range of topics in the field, from constitutional to statutory interpretation, precedent and the interpretation of contracts. The articles raise key questions concerning the optimal construction of institutions, the best approach to judicial decision-making, and the best strategies for statutory and contract drafting. Prefaced by an original introduction by the editor, this collection will be valuable to academics interested in legal reasoning, economic analysis and legal philosophy.

In Law in a Market Context Robin Paul Malloy examines the way in which people, as social beings, experience the intersection of law, markets, and culture. Through case examples, illustrative fact patterns, and problems based on hypothetical situations he demonstrates the implications and the ambiguities of law in a market society. In his analysis he provides a complete and accessible introduction to a vast array of economic terms, concepts, and ideas--making this book a valuable primer for anyone interested in understanding the use of market concepts in legal reasoning.

Legal theory must become more factual and empirical and less conceptual and polemical, Richard Posner argues in this wide-ranging new book. The topics covered include the structure and behavior of the legal profession; constitutional theory; gender, sex, and race theories; interdisciplinary approaches to law; the nature of legal reasoning; and legal pragmatism. Posner analyzes, in witty and passionate prose, schools of thought as different as social constructionism and institutional economics, and scholars and judges as different as Bruce Ackerman, Robert Bork, Ronald Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Richard Rorty, and Patricia Williams. He also engages challenging issues in legal theory that range from the motivations and behavior of judges and the role of rhetoric and analogy in law to the rationale for privacy and blackmail law and the regulation of employment contracts. Although written by a sitting judge, the book does not avoid controversy; it contains frank appraisals of radical feminist and race theories, the behavior of the German and British judiciaries in wartime, and the excesses of social constructionist theories of sexual behavior. Throughout, the book is unified by Posner's distinctive stance, which is pragmatist in philosophy, economic in methodology, and liberal (in the sense of John Stuart Mill's liberalism) in politics. Brilliantly written, eschewing jargon and technicalities, it will make a major contribution to the debate about the role of law in our society.

In this second edition of The Economics of Law, an introduction to, and overview of, the economic analysis of law is provided. The text covers the history of the economics of law, the difference between economic and legal reasoning, basic economic concepts, and application of economics to tort and crime, and has been expanded to cover the economics of competition law and regulation. The first edition owas one of the first non-US introductions to the economics of law. This edition has been described by Professor Sam Peltzman, general editor of the Journal of Law & Economics, as the most lucid exposition of the topic I've seen, and I am recommending to all who ask 'what's this law and econ stuff about'

This book is intended for law school courses on economic analysis of law.