Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Law and Econ Project, Table of Contents

As promised....

Oh, Work in Progress has the temporary title Law and Economics: A Guide for the Curious. My guess is that the title will change a few more times.

Table of Contents


Introduction
             The Original of Laura
            Choice in the Shadow of the Law


Chapter 1: E pluribus unum
             Robin
            Efficiency
                        Jeremy Bentham
            The Art of the Deal
            Willingness-to-pay
            Why Maximize Wealth?
                        Common Law and Civil Law
            The Coase Theorem
            Establishing a Market to Erode Rent Controls
            The Coase Corollary
            More on Property Rights and Efficiency: The Tragedy of the Commons
            The Reverse of the Medal: Property Rights and the Anticommons
            Contracts
                        Efficiency When?
            Expectation Damages and Efficient Breach
                        Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., on Bad Men and the Law
            Accidents
            Strict Liability
            Negligence
            Crime


Chapter 2: What’s done is done?
             Bart and Lance
            Chicago Dibs
            Patents
                        Advance Market Commitments
            Preventive and Punitory Measures
            Firearm Regulation
                        John Stuart Mill
            Low Probability, High Punishment Regimes
            Destruction of Property: What’s Done Cannot Be Undone?
            Moral Rights: What’s Done Cannot Be Redone?
            Intellectual Property: What’s Done Can Be Done Repeatedly
                        Public Goods
            Nabokov and Existence Value


Chapter 3: Squeezing a balloon

            Using the Law to Serve Distributional Goals
            The Peltzman Effect
            Art Again: Resale Rights, or Droit de Suite
            Squeezing Copyright
                        Creative Commons
            The De Facto Liberalization of the Copyright Regime
            A World Without Copyright
                        Copyright Vacuums
                                    Fashion Design
                                    Comedy
Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails
            Squeezing Newspapers
                        Hyperlocal News
            Deflating Subsidies


Chapter 4: Deorum injuriae Diis curae
             Low-cost Avoider or Insurer
            Products Liability
            Comparative Negligence
                        Foreseeable Misuse and Attractive Nuisance
            Mill and the Harm Principle
                        Pecuniary Externalities
            Blocked Exchanges
            Organ Markets
                        The Iranian Kidney Transplant Program
            The Parthenon Marbles and Cultural Property
                        Statutes of Limitation
            Standards of Proof
           

Chapter 5: Crooked timber
             Enforcing Contracts
            Lochner v. New York (1905)
            Dealing with Uncertainty
            Unconscionability
            The Endowment Effect
            Default Rules
            Organ Donations, Reprise
            Vice, Rationality, and Defaults
            Attractive Nuisance for Adults?

Conclusions (unwritten)
 
Glossary (unwritten)
 
References

Law and Econ Project, Update VI

Hmmm, well, there was a December 11 deadline....

I missed the deadline, but progress has been made, oh yes. The current draft is in the continuous revision phase. There is still no draft of the Conclusions, and no draft of the Glossary. The next revisions are slated for Chapters 4 and 5. I will shortly post the draft Table of Contents so we can see where things stand.

I prepared a prospectus and e-mailed it to a university press. The editor responded enthusiastically, and asked for the entire manuscript. I sent it, but haven't heard back - maybe the draft needs some more of that "continuous revision" before it is ready for distribution?

As for my reading plan, I managed to finish Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life, by Nicholas Phillipson -- it is superb. I abandoned for the nonce This is Your Country on Drugs, by Ryan Grim (2010), and managed to read only small portions of The Collapse of American Criminal Justice, by William J. Stuntz (2011). The Daniel Kahneman book, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), filled my time, and helped me decide to offer a course in behavioral economics next quarter. My current reading plan centers on Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney -- should be useful for that behavioral econ class.

As for LandE revisions, I intend to input some upgrades to Chapters 4 and 5 in the nest week or so. Hoping to get those Conclusions under way, too. I intend another bound version at that point. Scheduled to give a talk related to the manuscript on April 1, so want to prepare something for that, too.