Law and Economics (ECON)

2.5 Credit Hours

Law and Economics and Economics for Lawyers each aim to acquaint the student with various ways in which the tools of economics can be used to better understand certain legal issues. Law and Economics is aimed at students with a significant background in economics, two undergraduate price theory courses at a minimum, while Economics for Lawyers is aimed at students with little or no prior background. Students in Economics for Lawyers will examine a good deal of material from price theory texts, material that underlies the discussion of the electronic text but with which Law and Economics students will already be familiar. Law and Economics students will be able to devote that time instead to a number of journal articles that have used law and economics in insightful ways, material that students in Economics for Lawyers should be able to tackle after completing their course. Both courses will apply economic analysis to a limited number of cases as real world" illustrations of the potential uses for the theory. Economics is a systematic analysis of how various individuals would determine their preferred courses of action given the constraints imposed on their behavior. Some of those constraints are monetary, but many are not. Thus economics is not merely the study of money and wealth. For obvious reasons, of particular interest in these two courses are legal constraints. Private constrained optimizing decisions often help or harm people other than the decision-maker. For instance, my parties may disturb your sleep. If I ignore that, I am likely to party too often. A question arises, therefore, of whether that problem can be handled informally, or whether new legal rules are desirable. If the latter, what form should the rules take? Ignoring the lessons of economics can lead to rules that are ineffective, or even counterproductive. The tools of analysis in these courses will be largely verbal and graphical rather than algebraic. The method of instruction varies between lecture and discussion according to the material being covered. The text is new and old examinations, though available, may prove of limited usefulness. Regular class attendance is expected. Final examination in class.