This is a survey of economic analysis of law, that is, of the emerging field under which the standard tools of microeconomics are employed to identify the effects of legal rules and their social desirability. Five basic subject areas are covered. The first is legal liability for harm. Here we...

Should property rights be protected absolutely -- by property rules -- or instead by the requirement that infringing parties pay for harm done--that is, by liability rules? In this article, we present a systematic economic analysis of this fundamental question. Our primary object is to explain...

A fundamental legal problem is whether property rights should be protected by property rules or by liability rules. In this Article, we provide a systematic economic analysis of the choice between property and liability rules. We answer a basic question: why is it that liability rules are...

"Abstract: This essay considers the appropriate conceptual framework for assessing the taxation of private transfers to individuals. Although it is conventional to emphasize the role of estate and gift taxation or inheritance taxation in redistributing income from the rich to the poor, the...

"This essay revisits the question of instrument choice for the regulation of externalities in the context of climate change. The central point is that the Pigouvian prescription to equate marginal control costs with the expected marginal benefits of damage reduction should guide the design of...

"Optimal policy rules--including those regarding income taxation, commodity taxation, public goods, and externalities--are typically derived in models with homogeneous preferences. This article reconsiders many central results for the case in which preferences for commodities, public goods, and...