ECONOMICS AND LAW
cod. 1000408

Anno accademico 2011/12
5° anno di corso - Secondo semestre
Docente
Settore scientifico disciplinare
Scienza delle finanze (SECS-P/03)
Field
A scelta dello studente
Tipologia attività formativa
A scelta dello studente
48 ore
di attività frontali
6 crediti
sede:
insegnamento
in - - -

Obiettivi formativi

The Economics & Law course examines the legal behaviours and juridical norms in the broadest context of socio-economic and political institutions to assess through social cost benefit analysis of institutional and regulatory options.

It aims at preparing lawyers to better understand how legal and insti-tutional contexts modify incentives and affect socio-economic beha-viours, as well as to assess legislations and institutions (for example within the context of international organization, such as the World Bank, IMF, EBRD, etc.).

The effectiveness of standards, laws and regulations necessarily depend on the socio-economic behaviour of citizens, influenced by the incentives created by implemented policies (e.g. their enforcement). The course will provide an in-depth analysis of public institutions, devoting special attention to efficiency and equity issues. Ample space will also be given to property law, contracts, corporate theory and other legal questions. The course is not very technical in its nature and is designed to provide all the needed background information for a full understanding of the economic issues covered

Prerequisiti

Yes

Contenuti dell'insegnamento

1. INTRODUCTION TO LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
2. EFFICIENCY EQUITY AND WELFARE.
3. PROPERTY LAW AND EXTERNALITY
4. LAW ENFORCEMENT
5. RISK ALLOCATION AND STRATEGIC BEHAVIOURS
6. THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF LIFE
7. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND RESEARCH
8. COMPETITION AND ANTITRUST
9. CONTRACTS, INCENTIVE, REGULATION AND CORPORATE THEORY.
10. CIVIL RESPONSIBILITY AND OTHER LEGAL PROBLEMS

Programma esteso

(see http://www.unipr.it/arpa/defi/EconLaw11.html reported below)

1. INTRODUCING LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
What is economics?
What is economic efficiency?
What is the Economic Analysis of Law?
Why should people study it?
The public finance tradition analyzes
- Maffeo Pantaleoni (1883) - Antonio De Viti de Marco 1888 - Knut Wicksell
(1896)
Introduction to Public Choice Theory and Political Enterprises
- Giovanni Montemartini (1900) - Puviani Amilcare, (1903)
Contemporary developments -Posner, R.A - Calabresi, Guido (1961)
Economic structures and economic growth are influenced by legal systems and
many other elements
- Michio Morishima
Traditional comparative economics and " The New Comparative Economics"
(La Porta, Djankov, Glaeser, Lopez de Silanes, Shleifer and Vishny)
Alternative economic systems, with different public and private
institutions -> economic performance.
Law (on book and implemented),

2. EFFICIENCY EQUITY AND WELFARE
The main approaches to welfare economics:
a) The neoclassical one (John Stuart Mill, Edgeworth, Sidgwick, Marshall,
and Pigou)
- economic surplus.
b) The new one developed by Pareto, Hicks, and Kaldor,
- Pareto efficiency, the Kaldor-Hicks compensation and the Scitovsky
criterion,
c) The new new welfare economics approach
- limitations on government's information and on its ability to set
tax and transfer structures
A note on "equity" and Economic Justice,
equality: of opportunity, egalitarianism, discrimination
Techniques of Redistribution
"Basic Needs Versus Distributional Weights in Social Cost-Benefit Analysis"

3. EXTERNALITIES AND REGULATION
Externalities: The conventional analysis
Externalities in the law
Coasian critique of externality theory and further implications:
Damages vs fines:
Fines vs Damage Payments
Coase vs Pigou-a summary:
Public goods

4. RISK ADVERSION AND LAW ENFORCEMENT
The economics of risk aversion:
Von Neumann and Morgenstern utility.
Insurance: why it is interesting?
Why insure?
Thinking about risk allocation.

Ex Ante, ex Post:
Bright lines: Rules v Standards.
"Impossible attempts": Should there be a penalty for attempting to kill
someone by a method that cannot work?

5. STRATEGIC BEHAVIOURS, RISK ALLOCATION AND INFORMATION
Strategic behavior: The problem, Examples:
Problems with insurance: Adverse Selection & Moral Hazard.
Insurance: A way of thinking through issues of risk and cost allocation
Mechanism design
Property rules (allocation by consent of the owner) vs liability rules
(allocation by someone else taking, owner suing for damages). Why each makes
sense for some problems.
Application to product liability. Who is liable for damage done by exploding
Coke bottles?
How to decide whether or not the law should force Coke to "insure" its
customers against exploding Coke bottles. Why doesn't the law make these
calculations for ordinary insurance, deciding for you whether you are
insured or not?
Why not apply the same analysis to tort liability?

6. THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF LIFE
Equivalent variation (EV) and Compensating variation (CV)
The economic value of life: linking theory to practice
The Economic Value of Medical Research
Economic value of disability-adjusted life years lost
Insurance & the Value of Life: Friedman Comment

7. PROPERTY, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND RESEARCH
What is property?
Determining property rules involves a set of questions
Property rules--including Intellectual Property (I.P.), primitive societies,
et multae caetera:
Intellectual Property Law: What the law is, and The Economics

8. CONTRACTS, INCENTIVE, FIRM REGULATION AND CORPORATE THEORY
Contract law: Why have it?
Why should we or shouldn't we enforce contracts if we can?
Is there a contract there to enforce?
If we do want to enforce the contract, how do you fill in the details?
Theory of firm
The ownership issue Maria Vagliasindi Willem Buiter in "The case of
privatisation of network utilities".
Corporate Governance
The Separation of Ownership and Control
The Market for Corporate Control

9. COMPETITION AND ANTITRUST
Natural Monopoly
Regulation
Antitrust Law
Regulation of the Securities Market
Regulation of Banking and Financial Markets
Competition IN TRANSITION Maria Vagliasindi (2000, European Economic Review)
and 2006
EU Competition Policy

10. TORT LAW AND FAMILY LAW
The Marriage Contract:
Why does it exist: The reason for long term contracting.
What happened?
The economics of wedding rings-argument from an article by Margaret Brinig
(not in the packet):
Adoption market:
It is often claimed that, when I have a child, I impose net costs on others,
so that leaving people free to decide how many children they have will
result in overpopulation.
Tort Law: "Wrongful"
Causation complications
Liability
Complications in tort damage analysis.
Liability alternatives
Summary of implications:
Amount of damage payment awarded:
Punitive damages are for very deterrable torts.
Punitive damages are for strategic torts.
Why pay tort damages to the victim instead of as fines to the state?
The problem of measuring and compensating damages for loss of earning
capacity, death, injury.

11. Criminal Law:
Why benefits to criminals count:
Rich vs Poor--should they pay the same fines? In some cases yes, but in
others no, because:
Marginal deterrence: My article (with William Sjostrom) is accessible from
the web page.
The Paradox of Efficient Punishment:

The civil/Criminal puzzle: Again.

12. OTHER LEGAL ISSUES
The Icelandic Case
The 18th century case: Punishments.
Norms as a substitute for laws: The Ellickson Book
Summary of the Course
Is the common law efficient?
Richard Posner's Democratic Pragmatism
Interesting analysis of the Italian tax system
Federalism & International Organization

Bibliografia

FRIEDMAN - David, Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters, Princeton University Press

POSNER, R.A. Economic Analysis of Law, 7th edition, Woters Kluwer, 2007; or 7th ed. 2011

Metodi didattici

Oral lessons, and seminars

Modalità verifica apprendimento

Oral exam

Altre informazioni

The lectures cover the entire course content and are supplemented by practical exercises.

Individual help is also provided in Office Hours.