ECONOMICS AND LAW

(see http://www.unipr.it/arpa/defi/EconLaw11.html reported below)

1. INTRODUCING LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
What is economics?
What is economic efficiency?
What is the Economic Analysis of Law?
Why should people study it?
The public finance tradition analyzes
- Maffeo Pantaleoni (1883) - Antonio De Viti de Marco 1888 - Knut Wicksell
(1896)
Introduction to Public Choice Theory and Political Enterprises
- Giovanni Montemartini (1900) - Puviani Amilcare, (1903)
Contemporary developments -Posner, R.A - Calabresi, Guido (1961)
Economic structures and economic growth are influenced by legal systems and
many other elements
- Michio Morishima
Traditional comparative economics and " The New Comparative Economics"
(La Porta, Djankov, Glaeser, Lopez de Silanes, Shleifer and Vishny)
Alternative economic systems, with different public and private
institutions -> economic performance.
Law (on book and implemented),

2. EFFICIENCY EQUITY AND WELFARE
The main approaches to welfare economics:
a) The neoclassical one (John Stuart Mill, Edgeworth, Sidgwick, Marshall,
and Pigou)
- economic surplus.
b) The new one developed by Pareto, Hicks, and Kaldor,
- Pareto efficiency, the Kaldor-Hicks compensation and the Scitovsky
criterion,
c) The new new welfare economics approach
- limitations on government's information and on its ability to set
tax and transfer structures
A note on "equity" and Economic Justice,
equality: of opportunity, egalitarianism, discrimination
Techniques of Redistribution
"Basic Needs Versus Distributional Weights in Social Cost-Benefit Analysis"

3. EXTERNALITIES AND REGULATION
Externalities: The conventional analysis
Externalities in the law
Coasian critique of externality theory and further implications:
Damages vs fines:
Fines vs Damage Payments
Coase vs Pigou-a summary:
Public goods

4. RISK ADVERSION AND LAW ENFORCEMENT
The economics of risk aversion:
Von Neumann and Morgenstern utility.
Insurance: why it is interesting?
Why insure?
Thinking about risk allocation.

Ex Ante, ex Post:
Bright lines: Rules v Standards.
"Impossible attempts": Should there be a penalty for attempting to kill
someone by a method that cannot work?

5. STRATEGIC BEHAVIOURS, RISK ALLOCATION AND INFORMATION
Strategic behavior: The problem, Examples:
Problems with insurance: Adverse Selection & Moral Hazard.
Insurance: A way of thinking through issues of risk and cost allocation
Mechanism design
Property rules (allocation by consent of the owner) vs liability rules
(allocation by someone else taking, owner suing for damages). Why each makes
sense for some problems.
Application to product liability. Who is liable for damage done by exploding
Coke bottles?
How to decide whether or not the law should force Coke to "insure" its
customers against exploding Coke bottles. Why doesn't the law make these
calculations for ordinary insurance, deciding for you whether you are
insured or not?
Why not apply the same analysis to tort liability?

6. THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF LIFE
Equivalent variation (EV) and Compensating variation (CV)
The economic value of life: linking theory to practice
The Economic Value of Medical Research
Economic value of disability-adjusted life years lost
Insurance & the Value of Life: Friedman Comment

7. PROPERTY, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND RESEARCH
What is property?
Determining property rules involves a set of questions
Property rules--including Intellectual Property (I.P.), primitive societies,
et multae caetera:
Intellectual Property Law: What the law is, and The Economics

8. CONTRACTS, INCENTIVE, FIRM REGULATION AND CORPORATE THEORY
Contract law: Why have it?
Why should we or shouldn't we enforce contracts if we can?
Is there a contract there to enforce?
If we do want to enforce the contract, how do you fill in the details?
Theory o