Category Archives: Law and Economics
Neeman, Hernandez and Zultan, ‘Deterrence of Unwanted Behavior: a Theoretical and Experimental Investigation’
ABSTRACT We study whether concentrating enforcement resources – raising sanction probabilities in some areas or times while lowering them elsewhere – reduces socially undesirable behavior. Using a theoretical model and a laboratory experiment, we examine whether splitting a uniform sanction probability $p$ into a higher~$p_H$ and a lower $p_L$ can decrease overall violations. Our analysis […]
Max Fang, ‘The Tragedy of the AI Data Commons: Legal Constraints and the Economics of AI Innovation’
ABSTRACT The exponential growth of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought data governance to the forefront of legal and economic debate. As global AI models hunger for massive datasets, the legal restrictions around data ownership, privacy, and intellectual property are increasingly shaping and fragmenting what kinds of data are available, how they are accessed, and who […]
‘Does the Hand Formula Express Efficiency or Justice? Or Both?’
Emad H Atiq, ‘The Disaggregated Hand Formula’, 114 California Law Review (forthcoming 2026), available at SSRN (1 March 2025). The Learned Hand test is both famous and infamous. The main source of its fame is the law and economics movement, which drew attention to the test in the 1970s. According to Richard Posner and other […]
Guinea, Pandya, Sharma and Zilli, ‘The Impact of Increased Mass Litigation in the UK’
SUMMARY Over the past decade, the United Kingdom has seen a marked rise in collective litigation, transforming what was once a niche legal, rarely employed, tool into a fast-growing business model with wide-ranging economic implications. At a time when the country seeks to boost investment, support innovation and attract global business, the proliferation of mass […]
Buccola and Kahan, ‘Getting to yes: the role of coercion in debt renegotiations’
ABSTRACT This article develops a comprehensive account of the methods of consent solicitation broadly construed. We offer four principal contributions. First, we identify the features of a solicitation that can produce coercive intercreditor dynamics. Second, we document the possibility of coercive methods under standard bond and loan contracts. Third, we show that economic considerations can […]
Ignacio Adrian Lerer, ‘Why Bad Law Persists: Evolutionary Stable Strategies in Legal Systems’
ABSTRACT This paper applies the concept of Evolutionary Stable Strategies (ESS), developed by Maynard Smith and Price (1973) and popularized by Dawkins (1976), to explain the persistence of inefficient, suboptimal, or seemingly irrational legal arrangements. Unlike previous evolutionary theories of law that failed by treating legal rules as organisms subject to natural selection, we demonstrate […]
Piano and Piano, ‘The Medieval Origins of Spousal Consent’
ABSTRACT This paper examines the medieval origins of spousal consent, the norm requiring that marriages be contracted willingly and . Afree from pressure from third parties. We argue that this norm resulted from the Catholic Church’s consolidation of legal authority over marriage in the 11th-12th centuries. Committed doctrinally to the belief that marriages could not […]
Jonathan Hardman, ‘Corporate Law as Public Policy’
ABSTRACT Corporate law is a public policy balance. The state creates the corporation, and provides its legal features. ‘Micro’ aspects of the corporation, like separate legal personality, limited liability, and perpetual succession, were each provided by the state for public benefits rather than for their evident private benefits. Widespread utilisation of the corporation provides ‘macro’ […]
Tadeusz Dudycz, ‘Legal form affects the performance of a company’
ABSTRACT Using the latent multidimensional approach, the paper examines the relationship between a company’s legal form and its performance. Based on 72,596 observations of companies operating in Poland, we show that the legal form has a strong relationship with the company’s efficiency. We reveal that the corporate form and limited liability, contrary to popular opinion, […]
Jabotinsky and Sarel, ‘The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive: A Law & Economics Evaluation’
ABSTRACT The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D), adopted by the European Union in June 2024, represents an ambitious regulatory experiment that transforms large corporations into gatekeepers of sustainable supply chains. This paper provides a comprehensive Law & Economics analysis of the CS3D, revealing several overlooked incentive problems that may undermine its effectiveness. We identify […]