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 2000, ISBN 0691090092. Free online here.

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 online 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, close communication.
• 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 (including LLMs) have said. Limit your writing to two pages, and all the words shoulld be your own. 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. Should we offer crime bounties, or require insurance re own crimes?

• Quizes: 19Feb,19Mar,9Apr.
• Defended Opinions: 19Mar,9Apr,30Apr.
• Final: May 12, 1:30-4:15pm.

Week	Text Chapters	Lecture Topics	Notes
20,22 Jan	F1-3, P1-2, C1-2	Law Intro, Econ Review
27,29 Jan	F4,C3,4	Institutions and Coasean Analysis
3,5 Feb		Property	No Class Tuesday
10,12 Feb	F5,10,P4,C4	Property
17,19 Feb	F11, C5	Property Continued	Quiz Thursday
24,26 Feb	F12, P5, C6	Contract	No Class Thursday
3,5 Mar	F13, P8, C7	Contract continued
10,12 Mar		Spring Recess
17,19 Mar	F14, P6, C8	Tort	Quiz/Paper Thursday
24,26 Mar	F14, P7, C9	Tort, Legal Process
31 Mar, 2 Apr	C10, P16	Legal Process
7,9 Apr	F15, P10, C11	Crime	Quiz/Paper Thursday
14,16 Apr	F18, P11, C12	Crime Continued
21,23 Apr		No Class
28,30 Apr	F17	Private Law	Paper Thursday
12 May		Final Exam, 1:30-4:15pm.