1st Edition

Law and Economics Philosophical Issues and Fundamental Questions

Edited By Aristides Hatzis, Nicholas Mercuro Copyright 2015
    374 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    374 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    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.

    Engagement with Economics: The New Hybrids of Family Law/Law & Economics Thinking, Brian H. Bix

    The Inevitability of Kaldor-Hicks Criterion, Gerrit De Geest

    The Problematics of the Pareto Principle, Daniel Farber

    Law, Economics & Society, Lawrence M. Friedman

    New Institutional Economics and Legal Theory: Why New Institutional Economics Has Failed to Provide a Viable Alternative to the Law and Economics Movement, Aristides N. Hatzis

    Choosing (Our)selves: The Limits of Identity and Interests in Law-and-Economics, Allan C. Hutchinson

    Norms in Behavioral Law and Economics, Christine Jolls and Avishalom Tor

    The Theory of Value Dilemma: A Critique of the Economic Analysis of Criminal Law, Dan M. Kahan

    Overcoming Law-and-Economics, Elisabeth Krecké

    Comparing Law and Economics to Its Rivals, Richard H. McAdams & Thomas S. Ulen

    A Coase-mas Carol: The Coase Theorem as the Ghost of Law and Economics, Past, Present, and Future, Steven Medema

    Flawed Foundations: The Philosophical Critique of (a Particular Type of) Economics, Martha C. Nussbaum

    Functional Law and Economics, Francesco Parisi

    The Primacy of Norms, Edward Rubin

    Incentives and Constitutional Compliance Frederick Schauer

    Biography

    Aristides N. Hatzis is an Associate Professor of Legal Theory at the University of Athens, Greece.

    Nicholas Mercuro is Professor of Law in Residence ath the Michigan State University College of Law and Member of the faculty of James Madison College, Michigan State University, USA.