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oai:open-archive.highwire.org:aler:3/1/12015-05-20HighWireOUPaler:3:1
The market for social norms
Ellickson, RC
Article
This article presents a semirigorous model in which a new norm arises out of the workings of a market for norms. Change is triggered by a shift in either cost-benefit conditions or group composition. Because individuals are heterogeneous in important respects, they respond differently to these triggering events. The first persons to supply new norms generally are individuals who have either superior technical knowledge of cost-benefit conditions, superior social knowledge of group dynamics, or special endowments that provide them with unusually high tangible benefits from norm reform. Members of the social audience observe the competing efforts of these norm suppliers and reward the most meritorious ones by conferring on them either esteem or, according to an alternative conception, new exchange opportunities. Under optimal conditions, members of the audience - key participants in the demand side of the market for norms - do not free-ride because they incur no net costs when conferring their rewards.
Oxford University Press
2001-01-01 00:00:00.0
TEXT
text/html
http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/3/1/1
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aler/3.1.1
en
Copyright (C) 2001, American Law and Economics Association
oai:open-archive.highwire.org:aler:3/1/1252015-05-20HighWireOUPaler:3:1
Appeal from jury or judge trial: defendants' advantage
Clermont, KM
Eisenberg, T
Article
The prevailing 'expert' opinion is that jury verdicts are largely immune to appellate revision. Using a database that combines all federal civil trials and appeals decided since 1988, we find that jury trials, as a group, are in fact not so special on appeal. But the data do show that defendants succeed more than plaintiffs on appeal from civil trials, and especially from jury trials. Defendants appealing their losses after trial by jury obtain reversals at a 31% rate, while losing plaintiffs succeed in only 13% of their appeals from jury trials. Both descriptive analyses of the results and more formal regression models dispel explanations based on selection of cases and instead support an explanation based on appellate judges' attitudes toward trial-level adjudicators. That is, these attitudes make the appellate court more favorably disposed to the defendant than are the trial judge and the jury. The especially large differences between appellate court and trial jury dispositions probably stems from the appellate judges' sizable misperceptions about the jury.
Oxford University Press
2001-01-01 00:00:00.0
TEXT
text/html
http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/3/1/125
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aler/3.1.125
en
Copyright (C) 2001, American Law and Economics Association
oai:open-archive.highwire.org:aler:3/1/1652015-05-20HighWireOUPaler:3:1
The property-contract boundary: an economic analysis of leases
Miceli, TJ
Sirmans, CF
Turnbull, GK
Article
This paper examines how the legal design of a leasing arrangement affects the value of the leased asset. The model focuses on the incentive problems that arise when the ownership and use of an asset are separated. The results suggest that an efficiently designed lease may involve elements of property law, contract law, or both. This conclusion helps explain why the law of leases has historically occupied the nexus between these two areas of the common law.
Oxford University Press
2001-01-01 00:00:00.0
TEXT
text/html
http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/3/1/165
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aler/3.1.165
en
Copyright (C) 2001, American Law and Economics Association
oai:open-archive.highwire.org:aler:3/1/1862015-05-20HighWireOUPaler:3:1
A methodological comparison of Ronald Coase and Gary Becker
Hsiung, B
Article
This short paper comparatively studies Ronald Coase and Gary Becker from the methodological perspective. Since Becker's analytical approach is known to be a very general one, when Becker's and Coase's analytical approaches are compared, it is natural to assume that Becker's approach will be the easy winner. This analysis shows, however, that the opposite turns out to be the case. Two criteria (generality and applicability) are used to make the assessment.
Oxford University Press
2001-01-01 00:00:00.0
TEXT
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http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/3/1/186
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aler/3.1.186
en
Copyright (C) 2001, American Law and Economics Association
oai:open-archive.highwire.org:aler:3/1/502015-05-20HighWireOUPaler:3:1
The state of nature and the evolution of political preferences
Rubin, PH
Article
Analysis of governmental institutions often proceeds from a hypothetical 'state of nature', according to which humans are analyzed as if they once existed as solitary individuals with no rules. Humans have never existed as humans in such an environment but have always been a group-living species. Rules have evolved with humans and were never 'created' de novo. Evolved rules have implications for contemporary governance. Human groups have always been in conflict, and rules distinguish between group members and outsiders. These rules have proved remarkably flexible. Some rules regulate private conduct of group members. Although the desirability of these rules today is unclear, I argue that a libertarian regime would have been unstable, which may explain why there are few persons with tastes for libertarian governments. This analysis further explains why utility functions contain elements of envy. Rules of property, contract, and hierarchy are well developed and universal among humans.
Oxford University Press
2001-01-01 00:00:00.0
TEXT
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http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/3/1/50
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aler/3.1.50
en
Copyright (C) 2001, American Law and Economics Association
oai:open-archive.highwire.org:aler:3/1/822015-05-20HighWireOUPaler:3:1
The genesis of liability in ancient law
Parisi, F
Article
This article considers the emergence and evolution of punitive and compensatory remedies in ancient law. I describe how ancient practices of retaliation gradually evolved, through four general phases, into rules requiring victim's compensation. I suggest that the Biblical <it>lex talionis</it> ('eye for an eye...life for a life') and similar rules that emerged in other ancient legal systems triggered an important change in the ancient law of wrongs, marking the end of a system of retaliatory justice and the emergence of a system based on victim's compensation. The paper addresses four related questions. (1) Why was a single limit of 1:1 to talionic penalties introduced across all categories of wrongdoing, replacing older customary practices that had different multipliers according to the circumstances of the case? (2) In the presence of imperfect enforcement, did the 1:1 limit to retaliation result in underdeterrence? (3) Why did the practices of literal talionis rapidly fall into disuse after written formalization? (4) Where the <it>kofer</it> and blood-money payments made under a threat of literal retaliation likely to generate overextraction from the wrongdoer and excessive deterrence?
Oxford University Press
2001-01-01 00:00:00.0
TEXT
text/html
http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/3/1/82
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aler/3.1.82
en
Copyright (C) 2001, American Law and Economics Association