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:
- Torts: penalties and compensation
- Criminal penalties, responsibility, victimless crimes and moralistic values
- Contracts
- Tax and redistribution
- Regulation of risk (natural disasters, climate change, equity)
- Elections and voting
This course counts as a capstone seminar in Philosophy, Politics
and Economics (PPE). It is also open to graduate students.
Prerequisites: Micro-economics, and either Psych 153 (judgments and
decisions) or 165 (behavioral economics), or permission.
I've ordered
Steven Shavell's
book
Foundations of the economic analysis of law at the Penn Book
Center (not the Penn Bookstore).
1/19
Read Shavell, Chapter 1, as background.
Economic Analysis of Property Law, chs. 2, 5, 7 (sections 1-2).
Antonio Vasquez chs. 2, 5
Janice Jung (ch 7, sections 1,2)
1/24 and 1/26
Eminent domain and the psychology of property rights, Nadler and Diamond
Veronica Wang
No fair, copycat!,
(the paper)
Mike Tzeng
1/31
Shavell, Economic Analysis of Accident Law,
chapters 8-9
Ilana Gromis
ch. 10, sections 8,9; ch. 11, sections 1-6.
Colin Hu
2/2
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)
Derric Bath
Sunstein, C. R., Kahneman, D., & Schkade, D. (1998).
Assessing punitive damages.
Yale Law Journal, 107 (Iss. 7), pg. 2071 ff.
Schkade, D., Sunstein, C. R., & Kahneman, D. (2004)
Are juries less erratic than individuals?
Deliberation, polarization, and punitive damages.
Emily Freeman
2/7
Shavell, Contract Law, ch. 13-16.
Seonghoon Jeong (chs. 13-14)
Antonio Vasquez (chs. 15-16)
Wilkinson-Ryan and Baron,
Moral judgment and moral heuristics in breach of contract
Veronica Wang
2/9
Repugnant transactions.
Roth,
Repugnance as a constraint on markets
Mike Tzeng
2/14
Krawiec on baby markets,
Mary Riverso
Krawiec, #2 (shorter but similar,
suitable for class reading and comments)
Economic Analysis of Public Law Enforcement and Criminal Law,
chs. 20, 21 (sections 1-3), 23, 24.
Nell Sorensen (chs. 20, 21)
Colin Hu (chs. 23, 24)
2/16, 2/21 and 2/23
Paul H. Robinson and John Darley (2004).
Does criminal law deter?"
Benjamin Baumann
Robinson et al.
The disutility of injustice
Veronica Wang
Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel. (2007). Corruption, norms, and legal
enforcement: Evidence from diplomatic parking tickets. Journal
of Political Economy, 115, 1020-1048.
Emily Freeman
Baron, J., & Ritov, I. (2009). The role of probability
of detection in judgments of punishment. Journal of Legal Analysis, 2,
553-590.
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.
Antonio Echavarria
2/28
Sunstein, C. R. (2005)
Is capital punishment morally required?
Veronica Wang
Donahue, J. J. III, & Wolfers, J. (2006).
Uses and abuses of empirical evidence in the death penalty debate
Mary Riverso
3/2
General Structure of Law, ch. 25
Mary Riverso
Sunstein and Thaler,
Libertarian paternalism:
Antonio Echavarria
Korobkin
Libertarian welfarism:
Thaler, Sunstein, Balz,
Choice architecture
Janice Jung
3/14
Camerer et al.,
Asymmetric paternalism
Glaeser
Paternalism and psychology
Ilana Gromis
3/16
Diamond,
Vengeance is ours
A critique of it
Emily Freeman
3/21
Morality and law:
Welfare Economics, Morality, and the Law, ch. 27
Nell Sorensen
3/23
Welfare Economics, Morality, and the Law, ch. 27
Nell Sorensen (and JB)
Sunstein,
Moral heuristics (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2005, copyright Cambridge University Press).
Benjamin Baumann
3/28
Bilz and Nadler
Law, psychology, and morality
Veronica Wang
3/30
Baron,
Where do non-utilitarian moral rules come from?
Benjamin Baumann
4/4
"Moralistic values" (Baron)
Janice Jung
Tax and income distribution:
Shavell, chs. 28-29.
Janice Jung (ch. 28)
(ch. 29)
McCaffery, E. J., & Baron J. (2005).
The
political psychology of redistribution. UCLA Law Review, 52, 1745-1792.
Derric Bath
4/6
More tax
McCaffery & Baron,
Isolation effects and the neglect of indirect effects of fiscal policies
Ilana Gromis
McCaffery,
Baron and McCaffery on "starve the beast"
Antonia Echavarria
4/11
McCaffery on consumption tax:
Three views (short),
or
Progressivity (longer but very good and not as long as it looks)
me
4/13
Cost-benefit analysis.
Sunstein "Cognition and cost-benefit analysis"
Antonia Echavarria
Climate change
Posner and Sunstein,
"Climate change justice"
an interesting
video
Mike Tzeng
4/18
Baron, "Thinking about global warming"
Derric Bath
Kuran and Sunstein,
"Controlling availability cascades." (short version)
Hu
Kunreuther and Pauly, "Rules rather than discretion: Lessons from
Hurricane Katrina
Antonio Vasquez
4/20 and 4/25
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 by
sending mail to
p475@finzi.psych.upenn.edu.
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. :)