Instructor: Robin D. Hanson, Asst. Professor, Economics (rhanson@gmu.edu, http://robinhanson.com)
Office Hours: Officially Monday 10:30-12. But I'm usually in at Carow Hall 10A. Call ahead (703-993-2326) if you want to be sure.

Catalog Entry:

Econ 415 Law and Economics (3:3:0). 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.

Robert Cooter, Thomas Ulen, Law & Economics, Third Edition, 2000, Addison Wesley, ISBN 0-321-06482-8.

David D. Friedman, Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters, 2000, Princeton Univ. Press, ISBN 0-691-01016-1.

Richard Posner, Economic Analysis of Law, 5th ed., 1998. Aspen Publishers, ISBN 1-56706-562-7

To become familiar with basic facts and issues in the economics of law, and to be able to use basic theory of law and economics to argue for particular legal outcomes.

• Class Participation Please contribute to class discussions.
• Quizes Four in-class quizes will given, roughly every three weeks. Each quiz will emphasize the lectures and text readings since the previous quiz. Quizes are open book, open notes.
• Legal Opinions Four 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 to look up what others have said.
• There will be no final exam in this course.

1. Property: Who Gets What Asteriods and Sunlight?
2. Contract: When can break agreement to take a job, to take another job, and what are damages?
3. Tort: Negative Liability for Ratting on Cheating Spouses and Signficant Others
4. Crime: Death for copyright violation, and huge bounties for catching?

• Quizes: 25Sept,18Oct,8Nov,6Dec
• Legal Opinions: 30Sept,21Oct,11Nov,9Dec

• Class Participate 12%, 11% per Quiz, 11% per Legal Opinion.