Behavioral economics has been a growing force in many fields of applied economics, including public economics, labor economics, health economics, and law and economics. This paper describes and assesses the current state of behavioral law and economics. Law and economics had a critical (though underrecognized) early point of contact with behavioral economics through the foundational debate in both fields over the Coase theorem and the endowment effect. In law and economics today, both the endowment effect and other features of behavioral economics feature prominently and have been applied in many important legal domains. The paper concludes with reference to a new emphasis in behavioral law and economics on "debiasing through law" - using existing or proposed legal structures in an attempt to reduce people's departures from the traditional economic assumption of unbounded rationality.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
12879.
Length: Date of creation: Jan 2007 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12879
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Find related papers by JEL classification: A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines B00 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - General - - - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches D30 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - General D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement D91 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth - - - Intertemporal Consumer Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving J70 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - General K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description) K12 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Contract Law K13 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Tort Law and Product Liability K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process
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