An introduction to law and economics

by A. Mitchell Polinsky

Completely updated and revised for its Third Edition, An Introduction to Law and Economics focuses on a set of core topics including property, contracts, torts, and criminal law. The text imparts a good basic knowledge of economic principles and issues pertaining to the law. Avoiding specialized jargon and math, Polinsky shows students how to think like an economist and understand legal issues from an economic perspective.

This Edition features

extensive new material in all sections including discussions reflecting the latest legal and economic developments clear explanations in accessible terms a goal-focused approach that shows students how to assess legal rules and policies in terms of their efficiency in attaining broader economic and social goals

Genres: Law, Economics, Nonfiction

138 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1989

Reviews

[W]

Microeconomics concepts (e.g. Coase Theorem, Risk Aversion, etc.) used to think about how legal rules can achieve utilitarian efficiency (i.e. maximizing aggregate benefits minus aggregate costs). Purely normative; no empirics. Every example is a toy example only using elementary arithmetic and almost no discussion of real life laws in the real world.

It makes sense when applied to contract law or like corporate liability—but when it’s talking about how to punish e.g. a car thief I think it unintentionally demonstrates the injustice of “thinking like an economist.” Kant rolls over in his grave as this books implicitly treats individuals as mere utility functions; as punishable objects used as means to the society-wide end of deterring future crimes in the most efficient way possible.

Like, what happened to Blackstone’s Ratio: “It’s better to let ten guilty people go free than to wrongly convict one innocent person”—according to this book, we should just punish the one guy that’s caught 10x more and it will make up for the 10 we missed.

Utilitarianism is for psychopaths and businesspeople.

[Eliza Morgan]

Was better than the Friedman contribution