The Analytical Failures of Law and Economics

This book critiques the law-and-economics movement by showing that many of its leading arguments fail, even on their own terms.

Shawn Bayern (Author)

9781009159210, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 September 2023

202 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 1.7 cm, 0.44 kg

'The Analytical Failures of Law and Economics is that rarest of scholarly monographs, driven by a powerful and focused argument, and gracefully informed by erudition well beyond its primary subject matter. A rigorous synthesis of many years of research, Bayern's work should discredit fragile, empirically unsupported, and logically inconsistent models that still distort legal opinions, textbooks, and scholarship. The book also points the way toward a better methodology more responsive to the lived realities of contracts, torts, and property law.' Frank Pasquale, Jeffrey D. Forchelli Professor of Law, Cornell Law School and Cornell Tech, and author of The Black Box Society

The law-and-economics movement remains a dominant force in American private law, even though courts and commentators recognize that many of its assumptions are implausible and that efficiency is not the law's only goal. This book adds to the debate by showing that many leading law-and-economics arguments fail on their own terms, even for those who accept their most important assumptions and goals. Adopting an analytical approach and using some law-and-economics methods against the leading arguments in that field, Shawn Bayern shows that economic thinking fails to explain or justify most rules in the common law. Bayern masterfully surveys leading law-and-economics arguments in tort, contract, and property law and shows them to be fragile, self-contradictory, or otherwise problematic. Those who accept that efficiency is important should not be persuaded by the kind of law-and-economics arguments that have remained in vogue among legal scholars for decades.

Preface
1. Introduction and Background
2. Tort Law
3. Contract Law
4. Property Law
5. Afterword: ways Forward
Index.

Subject Areas: International economic & trade law [LBBM]