Summary

Law and economics is an influential field of legal theory in the United States. Its practitioners use the methodology of economics for the purpose of analyzing a diverse assortment of legal topics. This volume contains a selection of recent work in law and economics. The first part includes representative articles from different fields of law, including contracts, torts, criminal law, intellectual property and civil procedure. The second part shows ways in which law and economics has been changing in the last decade. It includes articles representing recent work that relaxes the rational actor model by introducing biases discovered by cognitive psychology; that tests law and economics with experimental techniques that are now popular in economics; that introduces computer modeling to law and economics; and that expands the domain of law and economics to take account of social norms and political structures. The articles are accessible to students and scholars with no prior expertise in economics and minimal familiarity with American law.