Principles and Methods of Law and Economics
Enhancing Normative Analysis

The book juxtaposes economic analysis with moral philosophy, political theory, egalitarianism, and other methodological principles.

Nicholas L. Georgakopoulos (Author)

9780521534116, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 3 October 2005

394 pages, 45 b/w illus. 15 tables
22.9 x 16.1 x 2.1 cm, 0.53 kg

“Principles and Methods of Law and Economics is a wide-ranging introduction to the bundle of norms, theories, and techniques that comprise the modern field of law and economics. Professor Georgakopoulos explores an unusually broad range of topics for an introductory text, extending from moral philosophy to financial economics, and from corporate law to an exegesis on empirical methods, complete with helpful tips on the use of Microsoft Excel. Principles and Methods is ideal as a student-friendly text for a course on law and economics. The exposition is lucid, and there are numerous useful illustrations and exercises. Equally to the point, however, Principles and Methods is a valuable reference for advanced students, practitioners, and legal scholars who are unfamiliar with the full range of topics that fall within law and economics. Veteran teachers in the field will find imaginative discussion of familiar topics such as the Coase Theorem. But even seasoned academics will find discussion of less well-known topics in the literature that, but for this book, they might never have explored at all. This is a book that will have broad appeal, and deservedly so."
Reinier Kraakman, Harvard law School

This is an introductory book that targets the reader who has the ambition to apply economic analysis but may be missing a technical introduction to its mathematical techniques or seeks a structured elaboration of its philosophical principles. The book juxtaposes economic analysis with moral philosophy, political theory, egalitarianism, and other methodological principles and then passes to the details of methods such as model-building, derivatives, differential equations, statistical tests, and the use of computer programs.

Introduction: innovation in legal thinking
Part I. Principles: 1. From formal logic to normative reasoning
2. Social welfare versus moral philosophy
3. From political philosophy to game theory
4. The importance of distribution of wealth
5. Coase and law's irrelevance
6. More failures of coasean irrelevance
Part II. Methods: 7. Mathematical modelling
8. Confronting uncertainty: basic probability theory
9. Advanced probability: distributions as the shape of randomness
10. How to price uncertainty: finance
11. Finance and probability: options and derivatives
12. Using spreadsheets
13. Statistics
14. Conclusion: importing methodological innovations.

Subject Areas: International economic & trade law [LBBM], Jurisprudence & philosophy of law [LAB], Economics [KC]