Altruism and Self-Interest from an Economic Analysis of Law Perspective : The Economic Analysis of Rescue Laws

The economic analysis of law mostly relies on the assumption of self-interested agents. Until the early 1970s, it is little concerned with the issues of rescue and helping. Now, an economic analysis of rescue laws appears with the works of Landes and Posner (1978). We show that the emergence and development of an economic analysis of rescue laws are the outcome of a long-term process that began in the 1950s with the passing of the first Good Samaritan legislations and finally results in articles published by Landes and Posner at the end of the 1970s. The article investigates the context that made the occurrence of such an economic analysis of law possible and the controversy that it fueled in the legal and economic fields. It also highlights the influence of the economic analysis of altruism on this particular field of law and economics