Instructor: Robin D. Hanson, Assoc. Professor, Economics (rhanson@gmu.edu, http://robinhanson.com)
Office Hours: Officially Tuesdays 9:15-10:15am, but I'm usually in at Carow Hall 10A. Email or call ahead (703-993-2326) if you want to be sure I'll be in.

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!

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. I will grade on how many relevant points you can make clear.

1. Property: Who Gets What Orbits, Asteroids, and Sunlight?
2. Contract: What remedy or damages for cuckoldry leading to kid?
3. Crime: Should private bounty hunters detect and prosecute crime?

• Quizes: 26Sept,26Oct,16Nov
• Defended Opinions: 26Oct,14Nov,7Dec
• Final: Dec 19, 10:30am-1:15pm.

Week	Text Chapters	Lecture Topics	Notes
29,31 Aug	F1-3, P1-2, C1-2	Law Intro, Econ Review
5,7 Sep		No Class This Week
12,14 Sep	C3	Law and Legal Institutions
19,21 Sep	F4, C4	Coasean Analysis
26,28 Sep	F5,10, P4, C4	Property	Quiz Tuesday
3,5 Oct	F11, C5	Property Continued
10,12 Oct		Contract	No Class Tuesday
17,19 Oct	F12, P5, C6	Contract continued
24,26 Oct	F13, P8, C7	Tort	Quiz/Paper Thursday
31 Oct, 2 Nov	F14, P6, C8	Tort Continued
7,9 Nov	F14, P7, C9	Legal Process
14,16 Nov	C10, P16		No class Tuesday, Quiz/Paper Thursday
21 Nov	F15, P10, C11	Legal Process, Crime	No Class Thursday
28,30 Nov	F18, P11, C12	Crime continued
5, 7 Dec	F17	Private Law	Paper Thursday
19 Dec		Final Exam, 10:30am-1:15pm.

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