The Law And Economics Of Workers Compensation

Workers' compensation was arguably the first widespread social insurance program in the United States--before social security, Medicare, or unemployment insurance--and the most successful form of labor legislation to emerge from the early progressive movement. In A Prelude to the Welfare State, Price V. Fishback and Shawn Everett Kantor challenge widespread historical perceptions by arguing that workers' compensation, rather than being an early progressive victory, succeeded because all relevant parties--labor and management, insurance companies, lawyers, and legislators--benefited from the ruling.

Workplace injuries are common, avoidable, and unacceptable. The Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada reveals how employers and governments engage in ineffective injury prevention efforts, intervening only when necessary to maintain standard legitimacy. Barnetson sheds light on this faulty system, highlighting the way in which employers create dangerous work environments yet pour billions of dollars into compensation and treatment. Examining this dynamic clarifies the way in which production costs are passed on to workers in the form of workplace injuries.

Accident law is currently under review throughout the United States, and indeed the world, as present systems prove increasingly inadequate to handle the mounting costs of automobile accidents. In this pioneering work, Guido Calabresi develops a framework for evaluating different systems of accident law. Defining the goal of accident law as the maximum reduction of accident and accident avoidance costs that can be achieved fairly, he examines ten political and economic choices implied in various approaches to reducing these costs. Calabresi then considers two fundamental problems all systems of accident law must face: who should be held responsible for accident costs, and how should they be valued? He analyzes the fault-insurance system now widely used and finds it wanting on grounds both of cost reduction objectives and fairness. In conclusion, he discusses recent proposals for reform of the law, points out questions they raise, and ends by indicating the two he thinks most likely to prevail and the fundamental conflict between them. "Calabresi's book is most significant for its first-rate combination of modern economic analysis and legal policy. The methodology and underlying principles extend far beyond the particular subject matter of accident law to many other legal areas that could benefit from economic analysis. In turn, some economic analyses may become the richer for the discussion in this book. It is truly one of those rare important volumes."--Gerald M Meier

"The essays in this volume confront the inroads that economics has made into the legal academy.... Law and Economics uses principles of neoclassical economics to develop laws and social policies that maintain if not bolster current allocations of power."—from the Introduction The Law and Economics school has had a significant impact on the legal and governmental landscape in the United States. It posits a perfectly rational "economic man"—homo economicus—who is unconstrained by familial and communal ties and who can and should make decisions solely in light of considerations of economic value. Feminism Confronts Homo Economicus offers a major intervention in debates about how law has come under the influence of economic principles. Drawing on the latest thinking in the fields of feminist legal theory, critical legal studies, and feminist economics, the essays critique the notion that legal and policy decisions should be made solely through the lens of economics. While the contributors question the wholesale incorporation of the neoclassical economic model into legal analysis, they do not all discard economic analysis and theory. Situated at the intersection of feminism, law, and economics, Feminism Confronts Homo Economicus will appeal to scholars and students of these disciplines as well as policy analysts and social theorists interested in family, education, labor, and welfare.