Principles and Methods of Law and Economics: Enhancing Normative Analysis

This is an introductory book that targets the reader who has the ambition to apply economic analysis but may be missing a technical introduction to its mathematical techniques or seeks a structured elaboration of its philosophical principles. The book juxtaposes economic analysis with moral philosophy, political theory, egalitarianism, and other methodological principles and then passes to the details of methods such as model-building, derivatives, differential equations, statistical tests, and the use of computer programs.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: innovation in legal thinking; Part I. Principles: 1. From formal logic to normative reasoning; 2. Social welfare versus moral philosophy; 3. From political philosophy to game theory; 4. The importance of distribution of wealth; 5. Coase and law's irrelevance; 6. More failures of coasean irrelevance; Part II. Methods: 7. Mathematical modelling; 8. Confronting uncertainty: basic probability theory; 9. Advanced probability: distributions as the shape of randomness; 10. How to price uncertainty: finance; 11. Finance and probability: options and derivatives; 12. Using spreadsheets; 13. Statistics; 14. Conclusion: importing methodological innovations.

About the Author :
Nicholas Georgakopoulos is Professor of Law at Indiana University School of Law. He received his master's and doctorate from Harvard Law School, where he specialized in finance and the regulation of financial markets. His publications are cited prominently, including citations by the US Supreme Court and the Securities Exchange Commission.

Review :
The merits of this volume by Professor Georgakopolos are many. The chapters are clearly organized and well written. His explications of statistical techniques and quantitative argumentation are very clear and should be easy for students, even those with no background in economics or statistics, to follow. Daniel H. Cole, Indiana University School of Law Professor Georgakopolos has written a book that displays an unusual and welcome ability to explain complicated concepts in intuitively congenial terms. Readers will especially welcome his discussion of the point of mathematical modeling and his highly accessible treatment of 'technical' methods used in law and economics. They will also profit from his review of the moral, economic, and philosophical underpinnings of normative analysis in the subject. Steven Shavell, Harvard Law School Written with insight and rigor this book will prove to be an invaluable resource for scholars and students of law, economics, public policy, and business. Kent Greenfield, Boston College Law School Principles and Methods of Law and Economics is a wide-ranging introduction to the bundle of norms, theories, and techniques that comprise the modern field of law and economics. Professor Georgakopoulos explores an unusually broad range of topics for an introductory text, extending from moral philosophy to financial economics, and from corporate law to an exegesis on empirical methods, complete with helpful tips on the use of Microsoft Excel. Principles and Methods is ideal as a student-friendly text for a course on law and economics. The exposition is lucid, and there are numerous useful illustrations and exercises. Equally to the point, however, Principles and Methods is a valuable reference for advanced students, practitioners, and legal scholars who are unfamiliar with the full range of topics that fall within law and economics. Veteran teachers in the field will find imaginative discussion of familiar topics such as the Coase Theorem. But even seasoned academics will find discussion of less well-known topics in the literature that, but for this book, they might never have explored at all. This is a book that will have broad appeal, and deservedly so." Reinier Kraakman, Harvard law School