Behavioral Law and Economics

Eyal Zamir and Doron Teichman

Offers a state-of-the-art overview of behavioral Law and economics for both law students and legal scholars
Surveys the entire body of psychological research that lies at the basis of behavioral analysis of law, and critically evaluates the core methodological questions
Discusses the fundamental normative questions stemming from the psychological findings on bounded rationality, and explores implications for setting goals and attaining them
Provides a systematic and critical examination of the contributions of behavioral studies to all major fields of law

Behavioral Law and Economics

Eyal Zamir and Doron Teichman

Description

In the past few decades, economic analysis of law has been challenged by a growing body of experimental and empirical studies that attest to prevalent and systematic deviations from the assumptions of economic rationality. While the findings on bounded rationality and heuristics and biases were initially perceived as antithetical to standard economic and legal-economic analysis, over time they have been largely integrated into mainstream economic analysis, including economic analysis of law. Moreover, the impact of behavioral insights has long since transcended purely economic analysis of law: in recent years, the behavioral movement has become one of the most influential developments in legal scholarship in general.

Behavioral Law and Economics offers a state-of-the-art overview of the field. Eyal Zamir and Doron Teichman survey the entire body of psychological research that lies at the basis of behavioral analysis of law, and critically evaluate the core methodological questions of this area of research. Following this, the book discusses the fundamental normative questions stemming from the psychological findings on bounded rationality, and explores their implications for setting the law's goals and designing the means to attain them. The book then provides a systematic and critical examination of the contributions of behavioral studies to all major fields of law including: property, contracts, consumer protection, torts, corporate, securities regulation, antitrust, administrative, constitutional, international, criminal, and evidence law, as well as to the behavior of key players in the legal arena: litigants and judicial decision-makers.

Behavioral Law and Economics

Eyal Zamir and Doron Teichman

Preface
Introduction
Part I: Economic and Psychological Background
Chapter 1. Economic Analysis of Law: An Overview
Chapter 2. Behavioral Studies
Part II: Behavioral Law and Economics: A Synopsis
Chapter 3. An Overview of Behavioral Law and Economics
Chapter 4. Normative Implications
Chapter 5. Behavioral Insights and Basic Features of the Law
Part III: Private and Commercial Law
Chapter 6. Property Law
Chapter 7. Contract Law
Chapter 8. Consumer Contracts
Chapter 9. Tort Law
Chapter 10. Commercial Law: Corporate Law, Securities Regulation, and Antitrust
Part IV: Public Law
Chapter 11. Administrative, Constitutional, and International Law
Chapter 12: Criminal Law and Enforcement
Chapter 13. Tax Law
Part V: The Legal Process
Chapter 14. Litigants' Behavior
Chapter 15. Judicial Decision-Making
Chapter 16. Evidence Law
Index

Behavioral Law and Economics

Eyal Zamir and Doron Teichman

Author Information

Eyal Zamir is the Augusto Levi Professor of Commercial Law at the Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he served as Dean of the Faculty of Law from 2002 to 2005. His spheres of interest include economic and behavioral analysis of law, empirical legal studies, contract law and theory, and normative ethics and law. Professor Zamir has been a visiting scholar or visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, NYU, Georgetown, UCLA, and Zurich law schools, and at Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena. He has authored or edited 15 books and published more than 60 articles. His articles were published in leading American and Israeli law reviews, including the Columbia Law Review, the Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Law Review, California Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Law & Social Inquiry-as well as in non-legal journals, such as Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, and Public Administration Review.

Doron Teichman is the Vice Dean and Jacob I. Berman Chair in Law at the Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His spheres of interest include economic and behavioral analysis of law, empirical legal studies, and criminal law. Professor Teichman has taught at leading institutions such as Columbia, Michigan, Texas, and the Center for Transnational Legal Studies. He has authored numerous articles that were published in leading American and Israeli law reviews, including, Michigan Law Review, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, New York University Law Review, and Law & Society Review.

Behavioral Law and Economics

Eyal Zamir and Doron Teichman

Reviews and Awards

"Brilliant and comprehensive - and there's nothing like it. Zamir and Teichman have brilliantly illuminated numerous areas of the law, and made a major contribution, at once, to social science and legal studies. A phenomenal achievement." -- Cass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University, and Founder and Director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy, Harvard Law School

"Academics acquire a taste for opposition. This may be good for building their careers. But for making the world a better place, structure and integration can be more important. This book is a perfect illustration. Two scientists at the cutting edge of their field synthesize what the law has to gain from blending behavioral insights with the rigor of economic thinking. Highly recommendable for academics and policy-makers alike." -- Christoph Engel, Director, Max-Planck-Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn

"This book provides one-stop shopping for anyone who wants to learn about law and behavioral economics from the ground up. Encyclopedic in scope, these sixteen chapters not only teach the predictable departures from neoclassically rational behavior, but also cashes out these positive predictions with normative policy implications across a host of legal domains." -- Ian Ayres, Townsend Professor, Yale Law School

"This book logically orders the potentially untidy assortment of observations about human behavior in legal settings. It thereby lifts the field of behavioral law and economics into greater prominence, even while serving as an excellent introduction to the field. It belongs on the shelf of every scholar, student, judge, and lawyer interested in understanding how law affects human behavior." -- Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Henry Allen Mark Professor of Law, Cornell Law School