Behavioral Law and Economics

Christine Jolls

No 12879, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Behavioral economics has been a growing force in many fields of applied economics, including public economics, labor economics, health economics, and law and economics. This paper describes and assesses the current state of behavioral law and economics. Law and economics had a critical (though underrecognized) early point of contact with behavioral economics through the foundational debate in both fields over the Coase theorem and the endowment effect. In law and economics today, both the endowment effect and other features of behavioral economics feature prominently and have been applied in many important legal domains. The paper concludes with reference to a new emphasis in behavioral law and economics on "debiasing through law" - using existing or proposed legal structures in an attempt to reduce people's departures from the traditional economic assumption of unbounded rationality.

JEL-codes: A12 B00 D30 D61 D63 D91 J70 K00 K12 K13 K41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-hpe, nep-law and nep-pke
Note: LE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Published as Christine Jolls, 2010. "Behavioral Economics and the Law," Foundations and Trends® in Microeconomics, vol 6(3), pages 176-263.

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