Instructor: Robin D. Hanson, Assoc. Professor, Economics (rhanson@gmu.edu, http://robinhanson.com)
Office Hours: Officially Tuesdays 4-7p, but I'm usually in at Carow Hall 10B. Email or call ahead (703-993-2326) if you want to be sure I'll be in, or you want to meet somewhere besides my office.

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.

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

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

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.
• Quizes Three in-class quizes will given. Each quiz will emphasize the lectures and text readings since the previous quiz. Quizes 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.

1. Property: What rules for space property, including how things get owned, what exactly it is that is owned, and what happens after collisions.
2. Contract: What remedy or damages for kid from cuckoldry?
3. Crime: Should private bounty hunters investigate and prosecute crime?

• Quizes: 24Sept,22Oct,17Nov
• Defended Opinions: 22Oct,17Nov,10Dec
• Final: Dec 15, 10:30am-1:15pm.

Week	Text Chapters	Lecture Topics
1, 3 Sept	F1-3, P1-2, C1-2	Law Intro, Economics Review
8,10 Sept	C3	Law and Legal Institutions
15,17 Sept	F4, C4	Coasean Analysis
22,24 Sept	F5,10, P4, C4	Property
29 Sept, 1 Oct	F11, C5	Property Continued
6, 8 Oct	F12, P5, C6	Contract
15 Oct		Contract Continued No Class Tuesday
20,22 Oct	F13, P8, C7	Contract Continued
27,29 Oct	F14, P6, C8	Tort
3, 5 Nov		Tort Continued No Class Tuesday
10,12 Nov	F14, P7, C9	Tort and Legal Process
17,19 Nov	C10, P16	Legal Process
24 Nov	F15, P10, C11	No Class this week
1, 3 Dec	F18, P11, C12	Crime
8,10 Dec	F17	Private Law No Class Tuesday
15 Dec		Final Exam, 10:30am-1:15pm.

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