Law and Economics

The economic analysis of legal and regulatory issues need not be limited to the neoclassical economic approach. The expert contributors to this work employ a variety of heterodox legal-economic theories to address a broad range of legal issues. They demonstrate how these various approaches can lead to very different conclusions concerning the role of the law and legal intervention in a wide array of contexts. The schools of thought and methodologies represented here include institutional economics, new institutional economics, socio-economics, social economics, behavioral economics, game theory, feminist economics, Rawlsian economics, radical economics, Austrian economics, and personalist economics. The legal and regulatory issues examined include anti-trust and competition, corporate governance, the environment and natural resources, land use and property rights, unions and collective bargaining, welfare benefits, work-time regulation and standards, sexual harassment in the workplace, obligations of employers and employees to each other, crime, torts, and even the structure of government. Each contributor brings a different emphasis and provides thoughtful, sometimes provocative analysis and conclusions. Together, these heterodox insights will provide valuable supplementary reading for courses in law and economics as well as public policy and business courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

The economic analysis of legal and regulatory issues need not be limited to the neoclassical economic approach. Contributors to this work employ heterodox legal-economic theories to address a range of legal issues. They demonstrate how varied approaches can lead to different conclusions on the role of the law and legal intervention.

1: Introduction: New Approaches to Law and Economics; 1: Law and Economics; 2: The Foundations of Socioeconomics and Its Relation to the Law; 2: Legal Issues Concerning Firms and Market Structure; 3: The Inadequacy of Competition Policies; 4: A Market Path to Liberation?; 5: Alternative Economic Approaches to Antitrust Enforcement; 3: Legal Issues Concerning Natural Resources, the Environment, and Land Use; 6: A Comparative Institutional Approach to Law and Economics; 7: Property and Politics in the Hudson Valley; 8: Prior Questions; 4: Legal Issues Concerning Labor, Employment, and Unemployment; 9: An Alternative Economic Analysis of the Regulation of Unions and Collective Bargaining; 10: Personalist Economics, Justice, and the Law; 11: The Efficiency and Employment-Enhancing Effects of Social Welfare; 12: Alternative Economic Approaches to Analyzing Hours of Work Determination and Standards; 13: Efficient But Not Equitable; 5: Other Legal Issues; 14: A Social Economics of Crime; 15: Economic Analysis of Tort Law; 16: Institutional Change and Economic Growth in Spain Since the Democratic Transition in 1978