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Global Law Working Papers
2006 Series
GLWP 07/06
Author
Title
Abstract
Economic analysis of law is a powerful analytical methodology. At the same time, as a purely consequentialist approach, which determines the desirability of acts and rules solely by assessing the goodness of their outcomes, standard cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is normatively objectionable. This Article proposes to overcome this deficiency by incorporating moral constraints into CBA.
This paper argues that adding threshold constraints to economic analysis would make it not only normatively more acceptable, but also descriptively more valid, without significantly compromising its methodological rigor. Such incorporation can contribute to bridging the gap between economic analysis of law and the prevailing moral and legal norms, as well as to narrowing the increasing gulf between economic analysis and other approaches to law and legal theory.
Contact the Author
mszamlew@mscc.huji.ac.il
msbmedina@mscc.huji.ac.il
