Monday, September 8, 2014

Law and Econ Project, Update XIII

Well, in at least one dimension, the recent plan has been fulfilled: I made it all the way through the nutshell series book on Law and Economics. Enjoyed it, too. The seemingly more pressing matter of completing my own book also has been accomplished, more or less, though not according to the detailed plan. Nonetheless, everything (except the Acknowledgements) is about ready to go. There will be some frantic last minute revising over the next week or two -- so I won't adopt any deadlines for reading -- but the final version should look pretty much like the current one. Not sure whether that is good or bad news.

I'll append the Table of Contents.  When I compare it with the version from 2.5 years ago, well, yes, changes (I hope improvements) have been made, but the similarities seem to dominate the differences. (Chapters 3, 4, and 5, largely are intact -- I wonder how much those intact sections themselves have been revised?) Hmmm. For my own edification, I'll put asterisks next to new or perhaps massively altered sections.



Concepts in Law and Economics: A Guide for the Curious
Jim Leitzel

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 Aggregate Wellbeing?
                        *Just Compensation
            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
                        *An Aside on View Blocking
            *What Happens When a Property Right is Infringed?

 Chapter 2: Efficiency pluribus unum
 *The Sixty Minute Law School
*Property, Mostly a Reprise
            *Who Owns Meteorites?
            Contracts
            Expectation Damages and Efficient Breach
                        Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., on Bad Men and the Law
            Accidents
            Strict Liability
            Negligence
            Crime
            *Purposes of Punishing Crime
Efficiency When?
            *Retribution?
Standards of Proof

 Chapter 3: 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?
                        *Defacing or Improving?
            Intellectual Property: What’s Done Can Be Done Repeatedly
                        Public Goods
            Nabokov and Existence Value

 Chapter 4: Squeezing a balloon
             The Peltzman Effect
                        *Endangered Species
            Art Again: Resale Rights, or Droit de Suite
Using the Law to Serve Distributional Goals
            Squeezing Copyright
                        Creative Commons and Open Access
            The De Facto Liberalization of the Copyright Regime
            A World Without Copyright
Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails
            Copyright Vacuums
                        Fashion Design
                        Comedy
            Squeezing Newspapers
                        Hyperlocal News
            Deflating Subsidies

 Chapter 5: 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
            Kidney Markets
                        The Iranian Kidney Transplant Program
            The Parthenon Marbles and Cultural Property
                        Statutes of Limitation and Adverse Possession
 
Chapter 6: Crooked timber
             Enforcing Contracts
                        Lochner v. New York (1905)
            Dealing with Uncertainty
            Unconscionability
            *Willpower Lapses
            The Endowment Effect
            Default Rules
            Organ Donations, Reprise
            *Selling Kidneys
            Vice, Rationality, and Defaults
            *Re-legalizing Drugs
                        *An Option to Commit to Opting Out: Self-Exclusion
            *Preventive and Punitory Measures, Again
            *A Happy Ending?

*Conclusions

References

*Glossary