The Analysis of Courts in the Economic Analysis of Law
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Description
Many analyses of courts within the economic analysis of law are indistinguishable from those produced by positive political theorists; they consider how judges control, exploit, or resolve conflicts of interest among judges. This article considers three contributions by economic analysts of law outside this common, positive, political theoretic model but which still exploit the tools of rational-choice theory. These contributions either integrate appellate decision-making within a more comprehensive model of litigant and trial behavior; assume that judges constitute a team with shared preferences; or assume that judges decide cases rather than announce or implement policies. These three elements yield a substantively different understanding of courts than the standard model of positive political theory (PPT). The assumption of shared preferences explicitly rejects the principal-agent model that is standard in PPT. The integration of appellate decision making with other aspects of the disputing process and the shift from policies to cases are consistent with, but potentially transformative of, the standard principal-agent models of adjudication.
Source Publication
The Oxford Handbook of Law and Politics
Source Editors/Authors
Keith E. Whittington, R. Daniel Kelemen, Gregory A. Caldeira
Publication Date
2008
Recommended Citation
Kornhauser, Lewis A., "The Analysis of Courts in the Economic Analysis of Law" (2008). Faculty Chapters. 1032.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1032
