Concepts in Law and Economics A Guide for the Curious

Economic debates about markets and freedom from the late 1940s onwards focused increasingly on how laws and regulation affected economic behavior, and how economics influenced legal decision-making. By the late 1950s the term "law and economics" came into use to refer to the application of economic analysis to legal problems. The overlap between legal and political systems also led to issues in law and economics being raised in political economy, constitutional economics, and political science. Concepts in Law and Economics: A Guide for the Curious provides a comprehensive integration of the fields of law and economics. In clear prose, Jim Leitzel challenges traditional approaches to law and economics and uncovers common themes that cut across the two fields, providing readers with a means of integrating their knowledge to examine problems through both a legal and economic lens. This book covers the major methods of law and economics and applies those methods to various issues, including art vandalism, sales of human kidneys, and the ownership of meteorites. Compact yet comprehensive, this is an ideal introduction to a vast number of concepts and controversies in the fields of law and economics. Economics students, law students, and those with a general interest in the social sciences will find Concepts in Law and Economics an interesting and engaging read, and will emerge with the necessary skills for thinking like a law and economics practitioner.

Jim Leitzel is the Director of Public Policy Studies in the College at the University of Chicago, where he has taught public policy and economics since 1998. He received his PhD in economics from Duke University; he has taught at Vanderbilt University, Duke University, the New Economic School in Moscow, and the International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University. Jim's research has concerned areas such as transition economics, gun control, and law and economics.