Instructor: Robin D. Hanson, Assoc. Professor, Economics (rhanson@gmu.edu, http://hanson.gmu.edu)
Office Hours: Officially Wednesday 3:00-4:15pm, but I'm available at far more times. We are supposed to do this via Zoom for now. Email me with a suggestion about when to talk.

Catalog Entry:

Econ 415 Law and Economics. Credits 3 Prerequisite: ECON 306 or permission of instructor. An economic analysis of the law. Topics include an introduction to legal institutions and legal analysis; application of economic concepts to the law of property, contracts and torts, criminal law, and constitutional law; the economic efficiency of the common law; and a public choice perspective on the evolution of the law.

David D. Friedman, Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters, Princeton Univ. Press 2001, ISBN 9780691090092. Free online!

A. Mitchell Polinsky, Introduction To Law and Economics, 4th Edition Aspen Publishers, 2011, ISBN 9780735584488.

Robert Cooter and Thomas Ulen, Law and Economics, Sixth Edition, Addison Wesley 2013, ISBN 9780132540650. Free here

David D. Friedman, Legal Systems Very Different From Ours, unpublished. Free here!

Gain familiarity with basic facts and issues in the economics of law, and an ability to use basic economics to argue for particular legal outcomes.

• Class Participation Please contribute to class discussions.
• Quizzes Three in-class quizzes will given. Each quiz only takes up half of a lecture period. Each quiz will emphasize the lectures and text readings since the previous quiz. Quizzes are open book, open notes.
• Defended Opinions Three times you will write a defense of your opinions on a legal topic. The assigned topics will be unusual, in order to encourage you to think them through yourself, rather than looking up what others have said. Limit your writing to two pages. I will grade on how many relevant points you can make clear.

1. Who Gets What Orbits, Asteroids, and Sunlight
2. What remedy for husband unknowingly raising kid not his?
3. Should we give convicts option of X years of exile instead of Y years of prison, for some X(Y) schedule?

• Quizes: 17Feb,10Mar,7Apr
• Defended Opinions: 10Mar,7Apr,28Apr
• Final: May 13, 4:30-7:15pm.

Week	Text Chapters	Lecture Topics	Notes
27 Jan	F1-3, P1-2, C1-2	Law Intro, Econ Review
3 Feb	F4,C3,4	Institutions and Coasean Analysis
10 Feb	F5,10,P4,C4	Property
17 Feb	F11, C5	Property Continued	Quiz
24 Feb	F12, P5, C6	Contract
3 Mar	F13, P8, C7	Contract continued
10 Mar	F14, P6, C8	Tort	Quiz/Paper
17 Mar	F14, P7, C9	Tort, Legal Process
24 Mar	C10, P16	Legal Process
31 Mar	C10, P16	Legal Process
7 Apr	F15, P10, C11	Crime	Quiz/Paper
14 Apr	F18, P11, C12	Crime Continued
21 Apr	F17	Private Law
28 Apr	F17	Private Law	Paper
5 May		Final Exam, 4:30-7:15pm.