An Introduction To Law & Economics 4th Edition (Aspen Coursebook) by A. Mitchell Polinsky

by A. Mitchell Polinsky

Be sure to examine AN INTRODUCTION TO LAW AND ECONOMICS, Third Edition by A. Mitchell Polinksy for your next economics course.

Genres: Law, Economics, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published June 1, 1989

Reviews

[W · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was better than the Friedman contribution