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Law and Economics Versus Economic Analysis of Law

Keith Hylton
Boston Univeristy School of Law

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 LAW AND ECONOMICS VERSUS
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF LAW

Boston University School of Law

Law & Economics Paper No. 17-40

Forthcoming, European Journal of Law and Economics

(Symposium on Calabresi’s Future of Law and Economics)

Keith N. Hylton
Boston University School of Law

This paper can be downloaded without charge at:

http://www.bu.edu/law/faculty-scholarship/working-paper-series/

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3024605

 Law and Economics versus Economic Analysis of Law

Keith N. Hylton ∗

Abstract: I agree with Calabresi’s general distinction between Economic Analysis of Law and
Law and Economics. However, these broad categories may obscure important differences
between types of law and economics scholarship. I would distinguish positive economic analysis
from normative economic analysis, and positivist legal analysis from nonpositivist analysis. The
four categories generated by these distinctions provide a more fine-grained map of the styles of
reasoning in law and economics, and has implications for the future of law and economics.

Forthcoming in the European Journal of Law and Economics (Symposium on Calabresi’s Future
of Law and Economics).

Keywords: law and economics, economic analysis of law, legal positivism, positive economics,
normative economics, transaction costs, norms, behavioral economics

∗
William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, Boston University, knhylton@bu.edu. This paper was prepared
the 2017 symposium on Calabresi’s, The Future of Law and Economics. I thank Bob Bone and David Pozen for
several helpful comments.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3024605

I. Introduction
In The Future of Law and Economics, Calabresi distinguishes Economic Analysis of Law and
Law and Economics. Economic Analysis of Law, “uses economic theory to analyze the legal
world… and, as a result of that examination, confirms, casts doubt upon, and often seeks reform
of legal reality.” 1 Law and Economics, by contrast, “begins with an agnostic acceptance of the
world as it is,” and “looks to whether economic theory can explain that world.” 2 Calabresi
expresses a preference for Law and Economics, and notes that practitioners of Economic
Analysis of Law often reach conclusions on the social desirability of laws while ignoring “real-
world” data.
In this essay, I will break these categories down further, distinguishing positive economic
analysis from normative economic analysis, and positivist legal analysis from nonpositivist
analysis. The four subcategories generated by these distinctions provide a more fine-grained
map of the styles of reasoning in law and economics, helps identify important distinctive features
of the schools identified by Calabresi, and reveals relationships between law and economics
writing and the substantial body of jurisprudence viewed as unrelated to economic analysis. The
subcategories provide a clearer picture of precisely where Calabresi’s work, which spans several
subcategories, is located in relation to the work of other writers who have greatly influenced law
and economics, and legal theory generally.
II. Categories
Calabresi draws a line between Economic Analysis of Law and Law and Economics, pointing to
Bentham as the original source of the former school of thought. He reminds us of Mill’s
description of Bentham as viewing “all ideas as strangers” and rejecting those that failed the test
of utility as vague generalities. Mill further noted, as Calabresi reminds us, that those vague
generalities contain the whole unanalyzed experience of humanity. It is difficult to imagine how
one could take all ideas as strangers, but the most likely meaning this phrase implies is a
readiness to reject any argument on the basis of tradition, convention, consensus, or general
acceptance. That is a very difficult to position to take, especially in modern society, and likely to
rupture many relationships. On the other hand, it is a valuable position to take as a researcher or
thinker because it enables one to question accepted wisdom, and thereby uncover falsehoods or
bad ideas accepted on the authority of convention. This absolute insistence on the right of the
individual to question claims and to demand proof was shared by Bentham and Mill.
Bentham, it is well known, rejected many ideas accepted on the authority of convention. One
famous idea he rejected was Blackstone’s theory that the common law embodied reason. 3
Bentham subjected the common law to the test of utility and found it wanting. He described
common law as “dog law” because the only way one could learn the common law was to violate
a common law rule, and then be punished for it. In the same sense, Bentham noted, a dog would

1
Guido Calabresi, The Future of Law and Economics: Essays in Reform and Recollection 2 (2016).
2
Id. at 3.
3
Jeremy Bentham, A Comment on the Commentaries, in A Comment on the Commentaries and A Fragment on
Government (J.H. Burns & H.L.A. Hart eds., Oxford Univ. Press 2008) (1776).

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3024605

learn the rules of his house by violating such a rule and then suffering a beating for it. Bentham
thought that it would not be difficult to improve upon the common law by constructing a code
that would give potential law violators notice regarding the rules of law.
Law and Economics, Calabresi explains, does not view the law as a stranger. Instead, it attempts
to make sense of and to explain the law, or the legal system, as it is. If it cannot explain the legal
system as it is, Calabresi continues, it asks whether we have misunderstood the legal system or
whether economic analysis should be modified to incorporate features of the legal system that it
has failed to incorporate. This is a broad objective and Calabresi states a strong preference for
this approach over the Economic Analysis School. Calabresi would describe himself as
belonging in the Law and Economics camp, though I think his work spans both categories, as
does the work of Posner, who Calabresi puts within the Economic Analysis School.
I find it more useful to draw dividing lines in economic analysis and in legal analysis separately.
First, economic analysis can be split into two camps: positive economic analysis and normative
economic analysis. Positive economic analysis generally aims to explain or understand
conventions or phenomena that exist; to explain the causes and the likely welfare consequences.
Normative economic analysis, by contrast, sets out to design optimal institutions or to reform
existing institutions toward optimality as defined by the analyst. A normative economic analysis
of the tort system, for example, would set out an objective function for the tort system and
attempt to discover the legal rules that would optimize the objective function. 4 It would make no
attempt to first examine the legal rules to see if they could be justified on economic grounds.
Second, legal analysis can be split into positivist and nonpositivist camps. Legal positivism, as I
will define it here, holds that the relevant law, or the only source of law, is provided by the state,
which announces the law through statute books, case reports, and administrative agencies. This
is an admittedly dated definition of positivism, associated with Austin, 5 Bentham, 6 and even
earlier Hobbes. 7 However, this is the definition that best serves the distinctions I aim to draw.
The modern post-Hart definition, which emphasizes law’s association with morality, 8 offers little
to a discussion of economic or utilitarian analysis of law. 9

4
In another contribution to this symposium, Alain Marciano and Giovanni Ramello describe Calabresi’s analysis as
fundamentally positive in its application of economics. See Alain Marciano and Giovanni Ramello, Law,
Economics, and Calabresi on The Future of Law and Economics, this symposium issue. In contrast, I describe some
parts of Calabresi’s work as positive and some parts as normative. The difference between our descriptions appears
to be due to different emphases on the meaning of “positive economics”. I emphasize the application of positive
economics as a framework for understanding institutions or markets generally, while Marciano and Ramello
emphasize the application of economics to explain the observable market behavior of individuals.
5
Specifically, the “command” theory of law. See John Austin, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (London,
J. Murray 1832).
6
Bentham related law to the will of the sovereign. See Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of
Morals and Legislation, in 1 The Works of Jeremy Bentham 1 (John Bowring ed., Russell & Russell 1962) (1843).
7
Hobbes asserted that the only laws that deserved the name were those backed by force. Thomas Hobbes, A
Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England 59 (Joseph Cropsey ed., Univ. of
Chi. Press 1971) (1681).
8
H. L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law (3d ed. 2012).
9
Henry Smith suggests that I use the sociological term “legal centralism” rather than positivism. I decided to
remain with positivism, though my meaning would be recognized by many today (post-Hart) as centralism.

2
In the positivist model, religious norms, conventions of behavior, and moral systems cannot be
viewed as sources of law. In the nonpositivist view (which complements my definition of
positivism) such conventions or norms can be viewed as sources of law. One theory of the
common law is that it is discovered by courts as they examine the norms and conventions
adopted within a society (Blackstone, Leoni). 10 Bruno Leoni set out an explicitly nonpositivist
economic theory of the common law. Much earlier, the nonpositivist economic approach was
reflected in Hume’s discussion of the emergence of property rights. 11
These distinctions generate four categories: economic positivism and legal positivism, economic
normativism and legal positivism, economic positivism and legal nonpositivism, economic
normativism and legal nonpositivism. Probably more accurately one could say that these
categories represent endpoints along a spectrum. The four categories I have just suggested could
be represented in a two dimensional diagram, where the relationships between viewpoints could
be mapped in a more detailed manner. In such a two-dimensional space, one could show that
some normative economics writers share many attributes with positive economics writers, while
others share fewer.
Consider the first category: economic positivism and legal positivism. What is in this box and
who falls in it? The box assumes that the law consists of rules stated in the statute books and
case reports, and also that the purpose of economic analysis is to explore the efficiency of the
law as is. Such an exploration would lead the analyst to start with certain principles of the law,
such as the distinction between strict liability and negligence, and seek to determine if the
allocation of strict liability and negligence rules appears to be economically efficient or welfare
maximizing. The approach is fundamentally different from normative economics because it
starts with the law, in a ready-made or modular form, and tests whether the existing modules, so
to speak, fit within the legal landscape in a manner that is economically justifiable – that is,
justifiable in light of incentive effects.
Who falls within this box? Posner is the obvious candidate. Today, his name is almost
synonymous with the common law efficiency hypothesis. He is a legal positivist because he
takes the relevant law as that expressed in case reports and statutes. Posner has never suggested
that the common law is “discovered” in the sense explicitly described by Leoni and suggested by
Hume and later Hayek. In an early and sophisticated review of Posner’s Economic Analysis of
Law, James Buchanan criticized Posner’s treatment of the common law for ignoring the earlier
contribution of Leoni. 12
It is something of a paradox that Posner has dismissed nonpositivist writing on the common law.
The common law efficiency hypothesis assumes that common law courts design rules that are
efficient in the sense that the rules would minimize costs if followed by actors without resort to
litigation. If efficiency were instead defined in the operational sense offered by Calabresi in The

10
William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England: A Facsimile of the First Edition of 1765 – 1769
(Univ. of Chicago Press 1979); Bruno Leoni, Freedom and the Law (1961).
11
David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature 484-501 (Prometheus Books 1992) (1737).
12
James M. Buchanan, Good Economics. Bad Law, 60 Virginia Law Review 483 (19740.

3
Costs of Accidents (hereafter Costs), 13 it would incorporate the costs of litigation and the effects
those costs would have on incentives to comply with the law. It follows that the only sound
argument for believing that the common law is efficient is that it generates rules that individuals
internalize and follow as norms in ordinary social interaction. If those norms were never
internalized – that is, if they are followed solely because of the threat of litigation – then the
norms would fail to describe efficient conduct. In short, the common law efficiency hypothesis,
to be valid, requires the internalization of common law rules as guidelines for conduct that would
be followed even in the absence of the threat of litigation.
Before Posner, Holmes had occupied the legal positive and economic positivism category. Of
course, Holmes does not use the term economic efficiency, so it may seem inappropriate because
of this to refer to Holmes as a precursor to Posner. However, Holmes does use the term
“convenience” and described the common law as conforming to convenience. 14 This is as close
as one could expect a legal researcher to come to using the term efficiency in the year 1880.
Holmes’s framework is utilitarian, which is different from the “market surplus maximization” (or
wealth maximization) thesis of Posner. However, the difference between the approaches is not
great, and if, as Bentham argued, utility is strictly increasing in wealth, then it should not matter
greatly whether you call yourself a utilitarian or a “wealth-maximizer”. If utility increases
linearly with wealth, there would be no differences between the wealth maximizer and the
utilitarian. Like Posner, Holmes examines the law as it is, and argues that it maximizes welfare.
Also, Holmes shows little interest, except in his chapter on the early development of the law, in
the emergence of law from convention. And even his discussion of the emergence of law
emphasizes the role of the state in imposing the law on its subjects.
Does Calabresi belong in the economic positivism and legal positivism category? If one focuses
on Costs, the answer would be a resounding no. Costs is within the normative tradition of
Bentham. However, Calabresi’s article on “Property Rules” and “Liability Rules” (hereafter
Property Rules) falls squarely in the economic positivism and legal positivism category. 15
Indeed, it is the most perfect example of the Law and Economics approach as described by
Calabresi. In Property Rules, Calabresi rejects the normative framework of law enforcement
proposed by Becker in 1968. 16 He proposes an alternative model that includes Becker’s as a
special case – where Becker’s approach is efficient when transaction costs are high and is
inefficient when transaction costs are low. Further, he shows that his model is consistent with
the law as it is. Finally, by embedding transaction costs in the model, Calabresi and Melamed
leave room for behavioral anomalies that the law takes into consideration but that economics still
struggles to incorporate. Kaplow and Shavell suggest that if transaction costs are low
(essentially zero), the Becker framework would still be efficient – in other words, the choice
between property rules and liability rules is a matter of indifference to the social planner when

13
Guido Calabresi, The Costs of Accidents: A Legal and Economic Analysis (1970).
14
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Common Law, 1-2 (1881).
15
Guido Calabresi & A. Douglas Melamed, Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the
Cathedral, 85 Harv. L. Rev. 1089 (1972).
16
Gary S. Becker, Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach, Journal of Political Economy 76, no. 2 (1968):
169-217.

4
transaction costs are absent. 17 However, any model that takes human behavioral patterns
seriously would treat transaction costs as significant in virtually all contexts – larger in some
cases than others, but never zero. Given that transaction costs are never zero (or even close to
zero), the property rule (in comparison to the liability rule) minimizes costs in settings where
contracting over readily observable parameters is feasible and relatively cheap. 18
To make the preceding defense of Calabresi-Melamed clearer, consider the bargaining process
under both the property rule regime and the liability rule regime when transaction costs are
sufficiently low to permit bargaining to occur. Under the property rule, a transaction will take
place, whenever it would be efficient, at a price that both buyer and seller find acceptable – in the
sense that the price is preferable to their reservation valuations. Under the liability rule, a
transaction will still take place whenever efficient, but it will be under terms that favor the
acquirer (buyer), who has the option to simply take and pay compensatory damages. Given this,
the possessor (“seller”) has an incentive to invest in defense or “self-help.” Because of the costs
of defense, the liability rule regime is inefficient relative to the property rule regime. And this is
only one of the reasons why the property rule regime is socially preferable when transaction
costs are sufficiently low to permit bargaining to occur. 19 There are other reasons, such as the
likely inefficient investment incentives created by the liability rule. 20
As a general matter, the problem of self-help boils down to one of transaction costs. 21 However,
these costs are primitive and unavoidable. Lawful possession includes the right to protect
property from a taking and to recapture stolen property, as long such actions are carried out with
reasonable force and taken within a reasonable time period. In reality, there is no such thing as a
transaction regime in which these primitive costs – of defense and of self-help – are not
present. 22 Hence the claim that property rules and liability rules are equally efficient when
transaction costs are zero is theoretically valid but empirically false because it requires the
absence of primitive transaction costs.
In addition to helping us understand the law as it is, and showing how economics can be
improved by incorporating salient features of the real world, Property Rules provides important

17
Louis Kaplow and Steven Shavell, Property Rules and Liability Rules: An Economic Analysis, 109 Harvard Law
Review 713 (1996). The Kaplow-Shavell critique relies on the Coase Theorem, which holds that the ultimate
allocation of resources will be efficient regardless of the assignment of property rights if transaction costs are zero.
R. H. Coase, The Problem of Social Cost, 3 J. Law & Econ. 1 (1960).
18
See, e.g., Keith N. Hylton, Property Rules and Defensive Conduct in Tort Law Theory, 4 J. Tort L. 1 (2011).
19
Other reasons include cognitive dissonance (the difficulty of bargaining under the threat of a taking), incentives to
develop a reputation for predation (since credibility as a taker enhances bargaining leverage under the liability rule).
On these matters, see Keith N. Hylton, Some Notes on Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Criminal Law, in
Research Handbook on the Economics of Criminal Law 67 (Alon Harel & Keith N. Hylton eds., 2012).
20
See Keith N. Hylton, Property Rules and Liability Rules, Once Again, 2 Rev. L. & Econ. 137 (2006).
21
Id. A possessor could promise not to engage in self-help or a potential acquirer could promise not to take, but
neither promise would be credible. Put another way, the costs of gaining perfect credibility are likely to swamp the
gains from contracting.
22
Perhaps in the Platonic utopia in which individuals considered all others potentially to be family members, the
costs of defense might not arise. In such a world, if someone demands you give him your property at an objectively
determined price, or risk a taking, you would not seek to defend yourself from the taking, because he is your brother,
or son, after all. But to describe the conditions under which such primitive costs as defense and self-help might not
arise is also to demonstrate why the conditions will never be observed.

5
lessons on what the law says – lessons for both lawyers and economists. In comparison to
traditional legal theory, Law and Economics is reductionist. Reductionism educates lawyers by
scrapping unnecessary distinctions, which lawyers are prone to make. By setting up broad rule
categories defined by associated remedies, Property Rules provides a simple model that captures
a great deal of the complex reality of legal rules. Within these categories, lawyers can introduce
many finer distinctions, but the categories help lawyers distinguish genus from species. On the
other hand, economists tend to be overly reductionist, and Property Rules sets an important line
beyond which economists should be careful about further reduction. An economic model that
fails to distinguish the effects of property rules and liability rules could easily lead the economic
analyst astray. 23
Now consider the category of legal positivism combined with economic normativism. My
earlier comments reveal much of what I will say about this category, which consists of writing
that takes the law as emanating solely from official sources and also attempts to design an
optimal system. The major pieces in this category are Bentham’s lifelong critique of the
common law, Calabresi’s Costs, and Becker’s Crime and Punishment. Each of these works
presents an ambitious reform proposal based on a normative economic model of the legal
system. The proposals have not been accepted, though they have led to minor changes here and
there. They have greatly enriched the philosophy of law without having a substantial impact on
its practice. It is fortunate, for the most part, that these reform proposals have had limited
impact. Each of them gives too little weight, in my view, to the learning embedded in the
common law.
The one feature Posner has in common with all of the works in this category is his legal
positivism. Posner has not made broad contributions to this category on the level of the three
aforementioned contributions, but he has written numerous pieces with specific reform proposals
based on economic models of the legal system. His work in this category has been more of
surgical nature rather than sweeping.
The next category to consider consists of work that reflects legal nonpositivism (natural law
theory) and economic positivism. The writing in this area treats law as emerging from social
conventions and at the same time relies on economic reasoning to justify the law as it is. Hume
is probably the first contributor in this category. Leoni, building on Hayek, is a more recent
contributor. Robert Cooter has contributed formal models of the norm creation process. 24 One

23
One significant area of economic analysis of law where reductionism has been carried too far is the Hand
Formula. Many analysts believe that the Hand Formula describes precisely how courts determine negligence.
However, anyone who looks carefully at the negligence cases will see that informational constraints often prevent
courts from applying the Hand Formula as commonly described in the academic literature. For example, some early
papers in the economic analysis of causation adopt the Hand Formula analysis. Guido Calabresi recognized the
inadequacies of such an approach to causation early on. See Guido Calabresi, Concerning Cause and the Law of
Torts: An Essay for Harry Kalven, Jr., 43 U. Chi. L. Rev. 69 (1975). For a modern treatment consistent with
Calabresi on causation, see Keith N. Hylton & Haizhen Lin, Negligence, Causation, and Incentives for Care, 35 Int.
Rev. Law Econ. 80 (2013).
24
Robert D. Cooter, Structural Adjudication and the New Law Merchant: A Model of Decentralized Law, 14 Int.
Rev. Law Econ., June 1994, 215-31. More recent literature on law and social norms has tended to focus on norm
creation more than the connection between norms and the common law. See Robert Ellickson, Order Without Law:

6
could even make the argument that Blackstone falls within this category. Blackstone believed
that the law was discovered by judges and based on reasonable conduct norms. He does not
present a consistent normative framework, but to the extent one emerges, it is utilitarian. His
discussion of criminal law, an area admittedly less receptive than either torts or contracts to the
theory of norms, draws heavily on Beccaria, a utilitarian.
The remaining box consists of writing that is nonpositivist in law and normative in economics.
If any writing exists in this area, it would have to advance the position that social norms should
be taken seriously as a source of law, and that there is an optimal set of norms that should
govern. Describing the goals of an author in this category suggests immediately why it is so
difficult to find any major writing that seems to fit the description. The author would have to
believe that there is an optimal set of norms, not consistent with observed practices and not given
to us by some other source such as established religion, and that this optimal set of norms should
be the recognized source of law. I can think of no economic writing in this vein. The closest
that comes to this is Immanuel Kant, who rejected utilitarian (and hence economic) thinking, but
at the same time offered a rather complete moral system and believed that his moral system
should be the basis of law.
As this review, summarized in Table 1, suggests, the major areas of writing in law and
economics consist of work in the first two categories considered above: positivist law and
positive economics, and positivist law coupled with normative economics. Holmes and Bentham
are two historical figures that represent these opposing categories, with Holmes in the former and
Bentham in the latter. However, they were both writing at a time when economic analysis was in
its infancy. Today, Posner is commonly associated with the first category. Calabresi is
commonly associated with the second category, but, as I have argued, that is mostly because of
the influence of Costs. If we take Property Rules into consideration, then Calabresi spans both
categories, having made fundamental contributions in each. Costs is in the tradition of normative
utilitarian analysis associated with Bentham. However, Costs introduces a far more sophisticated
treatment of economics and introduces an operational efficiency standard for law: the
minimization of the costs of injures, injury avoidance, and administrative (including litigation)
costs. As I have suggested, this operational efficiency standard is different from the common
law efficiency standard emphasized by Posner. A great deal of modern work on the economics
of litigation adopts the operational efficiency standard.
Given what I have said so far, and having accepted Calabresi’s distinction between Law and
Economics and Economic Analysis of Law, I would not point to Posner as the leading exemplar
of the latter school. Bentham is a fair choice as the starting point for Economic Analysis of Law.
After Bentham, the most plausible successor candidate is Becker, in his treatment of the law in
his Crime and Punishment paper. Becker’s article was a seminal contribution. Still, it suffers
from the flaws Calabresi identifies. Becker proposes a shift in the goal of criminal punishment
from elimination of gain, the standard objective of “classical deterrence theorists” beginning

How Neighbors Settle Disputes (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991); Richard H. McAdams, The Origin,
Development, and Regulation of Norms, 96 Mich. L. Rev. 338 (1997); Eric A. Posner, Law and Social Norms
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000).

7
with Beccaria, to internalization of cost. Becker’s model is sufficiently general that it generates
conditions under which elimination of gain would be the proper goal, but he concludes that
internalization of cost would remain an appropriate approach even under these conditions.
Becker fails to consider why the law adopts the gain elimination approach as a general rule in
criminal law, and why the conditions under which it is used in criminal law sometimes deviate
from the conditions suggested by his model. Calabresi addresses these issues in Property Rules,
and at the same time points to features of the real contracting environment with which law
consistently grapples that are absent from Becker’s model.
Posner is not an exemplar of the Economic Analysis School because he is typically associated
with the positive law and economics approach. In short, there is not a direct line from Bentham
to Posner. They share utilitarianism as a framework, though Posner has quibbled over
differences. But beyond the general framework, there is not a great overlap.
After Becker, the clearest exemplar of the Economic Analysis School is Calabresi’s Costs. To
be fair, Calabresi avoids many of the critiques that he levels at the Economic Analysis School.
He delves deeply into the law and the problems of potentially irrational human behavior with
which it necessarily grapples. Because of Calabresi’s enlightening treatment of legal doctrine,
his analysis shares many attributes associated with positive economic analysis. However, in
terms of the final output, Costs is a radical reform project very much in the spirit of Bentham. It
comes close to advocating a wholesale scrapping of much of the existing common law of torts.
There is nothing inherently wrong with such a reform proposal, standing alone. The danger in
such a proposal, a danger more obvious in Becker, is that the intricacies of tort law, at least some
of them, reflect the accumulated wisdom of experience. The allocation of strict liability and
negligence rules may be efficient, for example – though efficient in the doctrinal sense
emphasized by Posner. Altering this allocation could have costs that would have to be
considered in the operational efficiency test of Calabresi. But in order to understand the costs
that would be generated by altering the allocation of strict liability and negligence rules, one
must first understand thoroughly the potential efficiencies associated with the existing allocation
under the common law.

8
 Legal Analysis
Positivist Nonpositivist
Economic Positive Posner (Economic Analysis of Hume
Law)
Analysis Leoni
Holmes
Hayek
Calabresi-Melamed
(related: Blackstone)

Normative Bentham
Calabresi (Costs) (related: Kant)
Becker (Crime)

Table 1: Categories of Economic Analysis and of Legal Analysis

9
III. Behavioral Law and Economics
I have referred many times to the behavioral anomalies with which the law must continually
grapple as an important factor that might distinguish Law and Economics from Economic
Analysis of Law. Although Behavioral Economics is considered a relatively new discipline, it is
new only in its application of experimental methodologies. The theory that human behavior may
often appear to deviate from predictions based on the rationality assumption has been a feature of
law and economics writing for a very long time. Bentham was a behavioralist. His theories of
criminal punishment regularly took into consideration the possibility that potential offenders may
not respond in the typical rational manner to punishments. He argued that punishments should
have a characteristic quality to ensure that potential offenders were adequately deterred. 25 A
typical characteristic punishment would remind the offender of the punishment he had received
every time he considered returning to his earlier crime. A thief, under Bentham’s plan, would
have to have his hand severed, so that when he considered a future act of theft he would be
reminded of the punishment waiting him. Such a theory of punishment, by rejecting the notion
that a monetary fine could be sufficient as a deterrent, assumes some degree of irrationality on
the part of the thief.
Calabresi adopts behavioralist premises in Costs. Although he appears to believe that humans
are generally rational, he makes allowance for consistent deviations from rationality. For
example, Calabresi notes that individuals may consistently make poor decisions when comparing
short run gains to long-run costs. 26
That Bentham and later Calabresi in Costs both adopted behavioralist assumptions suggests that
consideration of behavioral limitations is not a feature absent from Economic Analysis of Law
and observed only in the category Calabresi calls Law and Economics. Behavioral economics
provides a set of tools which can be used with equal gain by both schools, and that have been
used by both schools. Perhaps the deeper lesson to be drawn from Calabresi is the proposition
that behavioral limitations must be taken into consideration by the analyst in Law and
Economics. That appears to be an important lesson from Calabresi’s Property Rules, when
viewed in retrospect in light of later writing on the topic. To justify the use of property rules,
some degree of departure from strong-form-rationality-zero-transaction-costs must be accepted,
otherwise, property and liability rules are both efficient under the Coase Theorem. Indeed, while
Calabresi and Melamed concluded that property rules are generally preferable, but transaction
costs require society to use liability rules instead in some areas, the better argument appears to be
that the choice between property rules and liability rules is a function of the magnitude of
transaction costs, and that transaction costs are to some degree unavoidable given behavioral
limitations.
I understand Calabresi to be saying that to do useful Law and Economics, in contradistinction to
Economic Analysis of Law, one must do one or more of the following. First, a researcher must
take behavioral limitations and other transaction costs into account. Legal rules cannot be

25
See Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation, supra note 5, at 92.
26
Calabresi, supra note 12, at 57.

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explained, justified, or even understood under Coasean assumptions. It follows that to critique or
to argue for reform of an area of the law on the basis of Coasean assumptions is a mostly useless
exercise. Second, a researcher must take a close look at the law, attempt to understand what the
courts are saying, and how the language of the law translates into tests governing incentives. It
is not enough to take a simple economic model of the Hand Formula and assume that courts are
implementing precisely the formula that economic analysis has developed. A close look at the
law might reveal that courts are not applying the Hand Formula as in the standard analysis, or
that information costs constrain or prevent the courts from applying the Hand Formula as
understood in economics. If this is so, then a simple Hand Formula analysis will fail to explain
the incentive effects created by the law of negligence in some scenarios.
This argument admittedly begs the question of what it means to do useful Law and Economics. I
take it that useful Law and Economics helps us understand, critique, or to justify, on economic
grounds, some part of the law or the legal system. Almost every part of the law throws up a
puzzle for which economics might be useful in solving. For example, consider the doctrine
governing punitive damages (ignoring, for the moment, the Supreme Court’s recent
constitutionalization of parts of it). Courts had developed intricate rules for determining the
conditions under which a punitive damages verdict should be upheld by an appellate court. To
understand the law on punitive damages, it follows from Calabresi, one should examine the law
and the economic factors that might account for the doctrine.
IV. Conclusion
Calabresi is entirely correct to suggest that the future of law and economics research depends on
the prevalence of Law and Economics relative to Economic Analysis of Law. Both schools
provide helpful insights based on economic analysis. However, to the extent Law and
Economics is inherently institutionalist, taking seriously the constraints imposed by and the
information embedded in the law, it has an advantage in offering research that can advance the
operation of the legal system.

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