Instructor: Robin D. Hanson, Assoc. Professor, Economics (rhanson@gmu.edu, http://hanson.gmu.edu)
Office Hours: Email me to arrange a video-chat meeting; suggest a day/time you'd like to meet.

Catalog Entry:

Econ 415 Law and Economics. Credits 3 Prerequisite: ECON 306 or permission of instructor. An economic analysis of the law. Topics include an introduction to legal institutions and legal analysis; application of economic concepts to the law of property, contracts and torts, criminal law, and constitutional law; the economic efficiency of the common law; and a public choice perspective on the evolution of the law.

David D. Friedman, Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters, Princeton Univ. Press 2001, ISBN 9780691090092. Free online!

A. Mitchell Polinsky, Introduction To Law and Economics, 4th Edition Aspen Publishers, 2011, ISBN 9780735584488.

Robert Cooter and Thomas Ulen, Law and Economics, Sixth Edition, Addison Wesley 2013, ISBN 9780132540650. Free here

David D. Friedman, Legal Systems Very Different From Ours, 1793386722. Free here!

Gain familiarity with basic facts and issues in the economics of law, and an ability to use basic economics to argue for particular legal outcomes.

• Class Participation Please contribute to class discussions.
• Quizzes Three in-class quizzes will given. Each quiz only takes up half of a lecture period. Each quiz will emphasize the lectures and text readings since the previous quiz. Quizzes are open book, open notes.
• Defended Opinions Three times you will write a defense of your opinions on a legal topic. The assigned topics will be unusual, in order to encourage you to think them through yourself, rather than looking up what others have said. Limit your writing to two pages. I will grade on how many relevant points you can make clear.

1. Who Gets What Orbits, Asteroids, and Sunlight?
2. What remedy for husband unknowingly raising kid not his?
3. Use WTP/WTA experiments, lawsuit lotteries for verbal assault?
4. Should we require all to get law voucher, where client-voucher contracts set premiums, punishments, freedoms, and co-liability?

• Quizes: 23Feb,23Mar,13Apr,4May.
• Defended Opinions: 23Feb, 23Mar,13Apr,4May.
• Final: May 16, 1:30-4:15pm.

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Week	Text Chapters	Lecture Topics	Notes
26 Jan	F1-3, P1-2, C1-2	Law Intro, Econ Review
2 Feb	F4,C3,4	Institutions and Coasean Analysis
9 Feb		No Class
16 Feb	F5,10,P4,C4	Property
23 Feb	F11, C5	Property Continued	Quiz, Paper
2 Mar	F12, P5, C6	Contract
9 Mar	F13, P8, C7	Contract continued
16 Mar		Spring Recess
23 Mar	F14, P6, C8	Tort	Quiz/Paper
30 Mar	F14, P7, C9	Tort, Legal Process
6 Apr	C10, P16	Legal Process
13 Apr	F15, P10, C11	Crime	Quiz/Paper
20 Apr	F18, P11, C12	Crime Continued
27 Apr	F17	No Class
4 May	F17	Private Law	Quiz,Paper
16 May		Final Exam, 1:30-4:15pm.