Psychology/PPE 475:
Special topics in behavioral law and economics
Professor Jonathan Baron (baron@psych.upenn.edu)
Fall 2009, Room C21 Solomon Psychology Lab Building, MW 2-3:30
See my web page for information about appointments and office location.
Mailing list: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/psych-475.
Presentations: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron/penn/p253.
Economic theory has invaded legal scholarship and law schools, in the form of "Law and economics." But the psychology of judgments and decisions has invaded economic theory, showing that people do not follow the classic model of economic rationality. Many legal scholars, such as Cass Sunstein, claim to have started a new field called "Behavioral law and economics," which explores the implications of psychology for legal theory. This seminar will review basic readings in law and economics and then the recent literature on the relevance of psychology.

Areas of interest include:

Prerequisites: Micro-economics, and either Psych 153 (judgments and decisions) or 165 (behavioral economics), or permission.

Reading

I've ordered Steven Shavell's book Foundations of the economic analysis of law at the Penn Book Center (not the Penn Bookstore).

9/9-14
Read Chapter 1 of Shavell.
Economic Analysis of Property Law, chs. 2, 5, 7 (sections 1-2).
Jon Baron (chs 2,5)
Anthony Balduzzi (ch 7 [1,2])
9/14-16
Shavell, Economic Analysis of Accident Law, chapters 8-9
Robert Makar
ch. 10, sections 8,9; ch. 11, sections 1-6.
Jon Baron
9/16 to 9/28
Baron, J. & Ritov, I. (1993). Intuitions about penalties and compensation in the context of tort law. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 7, 17-33. (pdf)
Nae Tanaka
Porat, A. (ca. 2007). Offsetting risks. Michigan Law Review.
Eric Merron
Mitchell, Gregory and Tetlock, Philip E., "An Empirical Inquiry into the Relation of Corrective Justice to Distributive Justice" . Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Vol. 3, 2006 Available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=912286
Thurston Hamlette
Sunstein, C. R., Kahneman, D., & Schkade, D. (1998). Assessing punitive damages. Yale Law Journal, 107 (Iss. 7), pg. 2071 ff.
Jeremy Baron
9/28
Schkade, D., Sunstein, C. R., & Kahneman, D. (2004) Are juries less erratic than individuals? Deliberation, polarization, and punitive damages.
Ana Maria Moreno
9/28-9/30
Shavell, Contract Law, ch. 13-16.
Andrew Godwin (chs. 13-14)
David Lint (chs. 15-16)
Wilkinson-Ryan and Baron
Nikhil Dingha
10/5
Economic Analysis of Public Law Enforcement and Criminal Law, chs. 20, 21 (sections 1-3), 23, 24.
Thurston Hamlette (chs. 20, 21)
Maya Perl-Kot (chs. 23, 24)
10/7-10/12
Paul H. Robinson and John Darley (2002). Testing lay intuitions of justice: How and why? Hofstra Law Review, 2000, 28 (3), 611-634.
Eric Merron
Criminal Law as an Instrument of Behavioral Control: Should Deterrence Have a Role in the Formulation of Criminal Law Rules? (skip section 1, pp. 5-24).
Jeremy Baron
Francesco Drago, Roberto Galbiati, and Pietry Vertova. (2009). The deterrent effects of prison: Evidence from a natural experiment.
Robert Makar
Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel. (2007). Corruption, norms, and legal enforcement: Evidence from diplomatic parking tickets. Journal of Political Economy, 115, 1020-1048.

Baron, J., & Ritov, I. (2009). The role of probability of detection in judgments of punishment. Journal of Legal Analysis, 2, 553-590.
Anthony Balduzzi
10/14
Greene, J. D. , Cohen J. D. (2004) For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, (Special Issue on Law and the Brain), 359, 1775-17785.
David Lint
Sunstein, C. R. (2005) Is capital punishment morally required?
Ana Maria Moreno
Donahue, J. J. III, & Wolfers, J. (2006). Uses and abuses of empirical evidence in the death penalty debate
Nae Tanaka
10/21:General Structure of Law, ch. 25
Andrew Godwin
Sunstein and Thaler, Libertarian paternalism:
Nikhil Dingha
Korobkin Libertarian welfarism:
Maya Perl-Kot
10/23
Camerer et al., Asymmetric paternalism
Jon Baron
Glaeser Paternalism and psychology
David Lint
10/26 Morality and law:
Welfare Economics, Morality, and the Law, chs. 26-27
Anthony Balduzzi (ch. 26)
Jeremy Baron (ch. 27)
10/28-11/2
Sunstein, Moral heuristics (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2005).
Ana Maria Moreno
Bilz and Nadler Law, psychology, and morality
Robert Makar
"Moralistic values" (Baron)
Eric Merron
11/4-11 Tax and income distribution:
Shavell, chs. 28-29.
Andrew Godwin (ch. 28)
Nikhil Dingha (ch. 29)
McCaffery, E. J., & Baron J. (2005). The political psychology of redistribution. UCLA Law Review, 52, 1745-1792.
Nae Tanaka
McCaffery & Baron, Isolation effects and the neglect of indirect effects of fiscal policies
Thurston Hamlette
11/16: More tax
McCaffery, The uneasy case for capital taxation.
Nikhil Dingha
Auerbach on the budget deficit
Andrew Godwin
Baron and McCaffery on "starve the beast"
Jeremy Baron
11/18 Climate change
Posner and Sunstein, "Climate change justice"
Thurston Hamlette
12/2: Climate change, continued
an interesting video
Baron, "Thinking about global warming"
Maya Perl-Kot
12/7 Risk:
Kuran and Sunstein, "Controlling availability cascades." (short version)
David Lint
12/9: Natural disasters
Kunreuther and Pauly, "Rules rather than discretion: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina
Robert Makar

12/11: discussion of papers

Course work

I will expect one written comment per week from each student on the reading, submitted before we discuss the reading, unless you are presenting that week. This should be posted to the mailing list.

I will ask one or two students to present the material for each class, with whatever comments they care to make. This page provides useful advice about presentations. In particular, if you use visual aids, do not simply make an outline and then read the outline.

Each student will write a course paper, two drafts. The last few meetings of the course will be devoted to student presentations about their papers.

Grading will be arbitrary and capricious. :)