Law and Economics: Contemporary Approaches

With a new project entitled Law and Economics: Contemporary Approaches, we hope to liberate casebook examples of economic analysis of law from their current cramped confines. While law and economics associations increasingly feature empirical work in their annual conferences, casebooks in property, torts, contracts, and other core legal subjects all too often feature simple models of economic activity developed decades ago.' While new ways of thinking about finance, health care, and privacy have developed rapidly in the past few decades (and particularly after the global financial crisis of 2008), casebooks all too often rely on simple models of market-driven supply and demand, out of touch with current economic realities.