Criminal law can justly lay claim to being the native domain of law and economics. From Bentham to Becker, no area of law has been more brightly illuminated by the radiance of economic logic.Not coincidentally, in no other area of the law has the conflict between economics and ordinary moral...

The Logic of Collective Action has for decades supplied the logic of public policy analysis. In this pioneering application of public choice theory, Mancur Olson ele gantly punctured the premise -- shared by a diverse variety of political theories -- that individuals can be expected to act...

The conventional explanation for controversy over climate change emphasizes impediments to public understanding: Limited popular knowledge of science, the inability of ordinary citizens to assess technical information, and the resulting widespread use of unreliable cognitive heuristics to assess...

Why do white men fear various risks less than women and minorities? Known as the white male effect, this pattern is well documented but poorly understood. This paper proposes a new explanation: identity-protective cognition. Putting work on the cultural theory of risk together with work on...

Recent work in cognitive and social psychology makes it clear that emotion plays a critical role in public perceptions of risk, but doesn't make clear exactly what that role is or why it matters. This paper examines two competing theories of risk perception, which generate two corresponding...

This commentary describes existing research on nanotechnology risk perceptions, including a meta-analysis published in the same issue of Nature Nanotechnology, and proposes directions for future research, for which experimental studies are most appropriate

Scientists and science communicators have appropriately turned to the science of science communication for guidance in overcoming public conflict over climate change. The value of the knowledge that this science can impart, however, depends on it being used scientifically. It is a mistake to...