Law And Economics

Catalog description

This course uses basic microeconomic tools to understand how law often, but not always, promotes economic efficiency. Among the areas to be discussed are tort law, property law, intellectual property, antitrust regulation. In the past, the interaction between the fields of law and economics has occurred in antitrust law, the governmental regulation of natural monopolies, and taxation. However, in the past fifteen years an entirely new body of learning has appeared that extends the interaction between law and economics into the core areas of the private law e.g. property, contracts, and torts, and into areas of public law, e.g, civil procedure and criminal law and procedure. This course is an introduction to scholarship in this new field of learning. Mathematical tools will be applied throughout the course using recent innovations in game theory, strategic behavior, and industrial organization. Prior knowledge of microeconomics is recommended.