The Second Law of Economics
The Second Law of Economics

Author: Reiner Kümmel

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2011-06-24

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 1441993657

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Nothing happens in the world without energy conversion and entropy production. These fundamental natural laws are familiar to most of us when applied to the evolution of stars, biological processes, or the working of an internal combustion engine, but what about industrial economies and wealth production, or their constant companion, pollution? Does economics conform to the First and the Second Law of Thermodynamics? In this important book, Reiner Kümmel takes us on a fascinating tour of these laws and their influence on natural, technological, and social evolution. Analyzing economic growth in Germany, Japan, and the United States in light of technological constraints on capital, labor, and energy, Professor Kümmel upends conventional economic wisdom by showing that the productive power of energy far outweighs its small share of costs, while for labor just the opposite is true. Wealth creation by energy conversion is accompanied and limited by polluting emissions that are coupled to entropy production. These facts constitute the Second Law of Economics. They take on unprecedented importance in a world that is facing peak oil, debt-driven economic turmoil, and threats from pollution and climate change. They complement the First Law of Economics: Wealth is allocated on markets, and the legal framework determines the outcome. By applying the First and Second Law we understand the true origins of wealth production, the issues that imperil the goal of sustainable development, and the technological options that are compatible both with this goal and with natural laws. The critical role of energy and entropy in the productive sectors of the economy must be realized if we are to create a road map that avoids a Dark Age of shrinking natural resources, environmental degradation, and increasing social tensions.

The Future of Law and Economics
The Future of Law and Economics

Author: Guido Calabresi

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2016-01-28

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0300216262

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In a concise, compelling argument, one of the founders and most influential advocates of the law and economics movement divides the subject into two separate areas, which he identifies with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. The first, Benthamite, strain, “economic analysis of law,” examines the legal system in the light of economic theory and shows how economics might render law more effective. The second strain, law and economics, gives equal status to law, and explores how the more realistic, less theoretical discipline of law can lead to improvements in economic theory. It is the latter approach that Judge Calabresi advocates, in a series of eloquent, thoughtful essays that will appeal to students and scholars alike.

Economics and the Law
Economics and the Law

Author: Nicholas Mercuro

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 9780691005447

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

By providing readers with a noncritical description of the broad contours of each school of thought, Mercuro and Medema convey a strong sense of the important elements of each of these interrelated yet varied traditions.

Antitrust Law and Economics
Antitrust Law and Economics

Author: Keith N. Hylton

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1849805288

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this outstanding new book Professor Keith Hylton and his collaborators examine what antitrust law has become over the past ten years, a time in which economic analysis has become its undisputed core. What has become of the old antitrust doctrine, what are the new issues for the immediate future? This book brings together the leading experts to examine this silent revolution at the core of US domestic policy. Mark Grady, UCLA School of Law, US Hylton s Antitrust Law and Economics brings together many of the best authors writing in antitrust today. Their essays range widely, covering proof of agreement under the Sherman Act, group boycotts, monopolization and essential facilities, tying and other vertical restraints, and merger policy. The writing is clear, accessible but still technically sophisticated and comprehensive. This book represents the best in contemporary antitrust scholarship, by authors who understand and are able to communicate the centrality of economic analysis to antitrust. No antitrust lawyer, serious antitrust student, or antitrust economist should be without this book. Herbert Hovenkamp, University of Iowa College of Law, US This comprehensive book provides an extensive overview of the major topics of antitrust law from an economic perspective. Its in-depth treatment and analysis of both the law and economics of antitrust is presented via a collection of interconnected original essays. The contributing authors are among the most influential scholars in antitrust, with a rich diversity of backgrounds. Their entries cover, amongst other issues, predatory pricing, essential facilities, tying, vertical restraints, enforcement, mergers, market power, monopolization standards, and facilitating practices. This well-organized and substantial work will be invaluable to professors of American antitrust law and European competition law, as well as students specializing in competition law. It will also be an important reference for professors and graduate students of economics and business.

The Second Wave of Law and Economics
The Second Wave of Law and Economics

Author: Megan Richardson

Publisher: Federation Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 9781862873162

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How best can the analyses and insights of economics inform legal theory and "improve" legal decision-making? The contribution of the first wave of law and economics scholars was marked by dogmatic adherence to the free market ideals of the Chicago school. Today, the second wave places greater emphasis on empirical data and accepts a much wider range of non-economic values - an approach which offers promise of an objective and balanced reception of law and economics by the courts. This book demonstrates the richness and value of the second wave. The contributors include judges from the High Court of Australia and the Court of Appeal, New Zealand and academics from the Universities of Toronto, Melbourne and Cambridge.

Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law
Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law

Author: Steven Shavell

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-07-01

Total Pages: 760

ISBN-13: 0674043499

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What effects do laws have? Do individuals drive more cautiously, clear ice from sidewalks more diligently, and commit fewer crimes because of the threat of legal sanctions? Do corporations pollute less, market safer products, and obey contracts to avoid suit? And given the effects of laws, which are socially best? Such questions about the influence and desirability of laws have been investigated by legal scholars and economists in a new, rigorous, and systematic manner since the 1970s. Their approach, which is called economic, is widely considered to be intellectually compelling and to have revolutionized thinking about the law. In this book Steven Shavell provides an in-depth analysis and synthesis of the economic approach to the building blocks of our legal system, namely, property law, tort law, contract law, and criminal law. He also examines the litigation process as well as welfare economics and morality. Aimed at a broad audience, this book requires neither a legal background nor technical economics or mathematics to understand it. Because of its breadth, analytical clarity, and general accessibility, it is likely to serve as a definitive work in the economic analysis of law.

Law, Economics, and Game Theory
Law, Economics, and Game Theory

Author: John Cirace

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2020-07-06

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 1498549098

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book considers three relationships: law and economics; economics and game theory; and game theory and law. Economists teach lawyers that economic principles cut across and integrate seemingly different legal subjects such as contracts, torts, and property. Correspondingly, lawyers teach economists that legal rationality is a separate and distinct decision-making process that can be formalized by behavioral rules that are parallel to and comparable with the behavioral rules of economic rationality, that efficiency often must be constrained by legal goals such as equal protection of the laws, due process, and horizontal and distributional equity, and that the general case methodology of economics vs. the hard case methodology of law for determining the truth or falsity of economic theories and theorems sometimes conflict. Economics and Game Theory: Law and economics books focus on economic analysis of judges’ decisions in common law cases and have been mostly limited to contracts, torts, property, criminal law, and suit and settlement. There is usually no discussion of the many areas of law that require cooperative action such as is needed to provide economic infrastructure, control public “bad” type externalities, and make legislation. Game theory provides the bridge between competitive markets and the missing discussion of cooperative action in law and economics. How? Competitive markets are examples (subset) of the Prisoners’ Dilemma, which explains the conflict between individual self-interested behavior and cooperation both in economic markets and in legislative bodies and demonstrates the need for social infrastructure and regulation of pollution and global warming. Game Theory and Law: Lawsuits usually involve litigation between two parties, not the myriad participants in markets, so the assumption of self-interest constrained by markets does not carry over to legal disputes involving one-on-one bargaining in which the law gives one party superior bargaining power. Game theory models predict the effect of different legal institutions, rights, and rules on the outcome of such bargaining. Game theory also has a natural four-model framework which is used in this book to analyze the law and economics of civil obligation, which consists of torts (negligence), contracts, and unjust enrichment.

Pioneers of Law and Economics
Pioneers of Law and Economics

Author: Lloyd R. Cohen

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780857935441

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The law and economics movement came of age in the second half of the 20th century and had a profound effect on both the scholarship and practice of law. The specially commissioned essays in this book honor the pioneering contributions of those who created the foundation of the modern law and economics enterprise. The editors of the volume embrace a view of the field that is inclusive not only of a broad range of issues, but also of economic methods. Celebrated here as the founding pioneers of law and economics is a remarkably varied collection of scholars: applied and theoretical micro-economists, founders of public choice economics, and legal scholars and judges. They include: Ronald Coase, Aaron Director, George Stigler, Armen Alchian, Harold Demsetz, Benjamin Klein, James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Henry Manne, Richard Posner, Gary Becker, William Landes, Richard Epstein, Guido Calabresi, Frank Easterbrook, Daniel Fischel, Steven Shavell and A. Mitchell Polinsky. Contributors to the volume include other pioneers, former students and clerks, colleagues, and influential scholars in the field. Scholars and students working in the tradition of law and economics, as well as those in the fields of economics, law and public policy will find the book an essential reference for this important area of scholarship.

The Republic of Beliefs
The Republic of Beliefs

Author: Kaushik Basu

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-12-08

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 0691210047

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"[This book] argues that the traditional economic analysis of the law has significant flaws and has failed to answer certain critical questions satisfactorily. Why are good laws drafted but never implemented? When laws are unenforced, is it a failure of the law or the enforcers? And, most important, considering that laws are simply words on paper, why are they effective? Basu offers a provocative alternative to how the relationship between economics and real-world law enforcement should be understood. Basu summarizes standard, neoclassical law and economics before looking at the weaknesses underlying the discipline. Bringing modern game theory to bear, he develops a 'focal point' approach, modeling not just the self-interested actions of the citizens who must follow laws but also the functionaries of the state: the politicians, judges, and bureaucrats enforcing them. He demonstrates the connections between social norms and the law and shows how well conceived ideas can change and benefit human behavior. For example, bribe givers and takers will collude when they are treated equally under the law. And in food support programs, vouchers should be given directly to the poor to prevent shop owners from selling subsidized rations on the open market. Basu provides a new paradigm for the ways that law and economics interact: a framework applicable to both less developed countries and the developed world"--Jacket.

The Economic Metabolism
The Economic Metabolism

Author: Wim Heijman

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 9401150389

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Students in Technical and Agricultural faculties spend only a limited amount of time on general economics, environmental economics and resource economics. However, while their knowledge of economics may be limited, they often have adequate mathematical skills. The objective of The Economic Metabolism, therefore, is to present these three branches of economics in an integrated, mathematically oriented way, so that the subjects can be taught together, without losing time on separate economics courses. While the approach adopted is mathematical, the mathematics used is certainly not too difficult for the target group: university students in technical and/or agricultural faculties will be used to far more difficult mathematics. After studying the book, the basic/intermediate level student should be able to understand the basic principles of economics, especially microeconomics; understand the economic principles of environmental policy; understand the economic principles of resource extraction; apply the standards for efficiency and sustainability; and apply the theory to practical problems.