Economic Analysis of Law (Casebook) [Hardcover]

Richard A. Posner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1998 | ISBN-10: 1567065627 | ISBN-13: 978-1567065626 | Edition: 5th

Now available as a looseleaf!

Lucid, comprehensive, and definitive in its field, this text covers every aspect of economic analysis of the la, from common law, corporate and commercial law, and public international law to family law, evidence, and the economic theory of democracy. Updated in its Seventh edition, Economic Analysis of Law is the preeminent work in its field. Authored by the pioneer in law and economics analysis, this user-friendly and accessible text sustains itself as a favorite among students and professors alike. Many great features make this text an ideal option for your classroom: maintains its standing as the preeminent work in the field, covering the legal-economic perspective on all key areas, from common law to the Constitution offers user-friendly organization: non-quantitative approach does not assume or require prior knowledge of economics or mathematics part and chapter organization based on legal, not economic concepts includes end-of-chapter sections to reinforce and extend learning through problems and suggested further readings covers Enron and other corporate scandals; and Congress' response in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act includes organizational economics with particular reference not only to corporations but also to nonprofits, law firms, and the judiciary covers teh rapidly expanding interest in the legal regulation of national security and foreign affairs (torture issues, executive power, the USA Patriot Act, etc.) requires the addition of the interesting economic issues presented by such regulation covers foreign law, interest, both substantive and both national and supranational (e.g., European Union) is included throughout the book) updated to reflect the growing importance of behavioral finance includes legal-economic issues relating to the Internet are added to several chapters>

--This text refers to the Ring-bound edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 802 pages
• Publisher: Aspen Law & Business; 5th edition (January 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567065627
• ISBN-13: 978-1567065626
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,163,834 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Richard A. Posner is a judge of the U.S. Court Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School. He is the author of numerous books, including Overcoming Law, a New York Times Book Review editors' choices for best book of 1995 and An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton, one of Times' choices for Best Book of the Year in 1999 and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, 2000.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Monumental, brilliant . . . and ultimately unconvincing, August 10, 2001

By 

John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Cuyahoga Falls, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Economic Analysis of Law (Casebook) (Hardcover)

Prior to 1960, legal scholars invoked economics only in a handful of specialized contexts -- mostly antitrust and taxation. But it was not generally thought that economic science had much of anything useful to say about the law generally.

Then, in the early 1960s, Guido Calabresi and Ronald Coase published a couple of papers that a lot of people found pretty darned interesting.

Richard Posner was one of those people. Within about a decade thereafter, he had written a massive treatise-textbook that attempted to apply (Chicago-school) economic insights to almost the entirety of the law, in part relying on Calabresi's insights on risk allocation and Coase's famous theorem about what happens in a world with no transaction costs.

That treatise-textbook is now in its fifth edition, and you're looking at the Amazon page for it. It would be hard to name a more influential work in the field of law and economics -- and even today, as Posner himself will gladly tell you, although there are a few other _textbooks_ on the topic, there are still no other _treatises_.

Posner's scope is breathtaking. Not content to limit himself to the usual array of legal topics (property, torts, contracts, criminal law, legal procedure, and so forth), he also manages to devote portions of his text to, e.g., sex and marriage, surrogate motherhood, prostitution, homosexuality, and a host of other controversial and/or marginal topics you don't typically encounter in an economics text.

The typical reader will probably not find him altogether persuasive on these topics. In fact, if you're anything like me, you'll probably wind up shaking your head in sheer wonderment: how is it possible for someone to be so brilliantly incisive on one page and so infuriatingly obtuse on the next?

But don't assume Posner is the one who's wrong. Don't misunderstand me; I think he _is_ sometimes the one who's wrong. But even then, his arguments are something to be reckoned with, not to be easily dismissed. (Nor is he _ever_ simply "obtuse.")

For the most part I think the book is a success in its more modest aim. In the fifth edition, Posner ends his opening chapter with a short reply to critics of the law and economics movement; with much of what he has to say here I can wholeheartedly agree. His work should, as he notes, be of _some_ interest to anyone who thinks Kaldor-Hicks efficiency/potential Pareto improvement plays any role whatsoever in setting policies. (I don't personally think it plays or should play much role at all, but I can agree with the point as Posner has stated it.) And Posner notes, quite unobjectionably, that the entire field should not be rejected merely because one does not accept the views of its most aggressive exponents.

But make no mistake, Posner _is_ one of its most aggressive exponents, and the apparent modesty of his aims is somewhat disingenuous: he is not merely trying to find out what economics can say about the law but to tell us that it can say quite a lot indeed. And it is here that I find him ultimately unconvincing on a number of points.

(To take one well-known example, I don't think Posner's discussion of the famous "Hand formula" captures what Judge Billings Learned Hand meant by it, and at any rate the formula is not as useful as Posner seems to think it is. There is some good discussion of the Hand formula by Richard Wright in _Philosophical Foundations of Tort Law_, and in general Posner has been roundly and in some respects successfully criticized by a wide range of scholars from Ronald Dworkin to Gary Schwartz.)

But there is no getting around this massive work, and it absolutely cannot be lightly dismissed. On the contrary, the thing bristles with fine insights and obviously massive legal and economic erudition; most of it will repay close reading even for the reader who ends up disagreeing. If you have any interest in the field of law and economics, you really ought to read this book _sometime_.

22 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a groundbreaking legal work, January 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Economic Analysis of Law (Casebook) (Hardcover)

this is one of the most original and groundbreaking pieces of legal literature in history...Posner, one of the founders of the "chicago school" of law & economics applies the principles of ecomonics to analyze the entrire legal system from basic rules to underlying principles

2 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Yuk - not for the faint of heart, January 30, 2010

By 

MD law gal (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Economic Analysis of Law (Hardcover)

Bought this for a law and econ class in law school - one that supposedly didn't require an econ background. This book belies that claim. I started reading and spent more time looking up econ terms and phrases than I actually did reading. I'm not sure this book has much value for the average layperson, but perhaps it gets better and clearer after the introduction and first few chapters - I dropped the class and returned the book before I got there. I love Posner's holdings when he writes for the court - but this book was awfully dense.