Rational Legal Decision-Making, Value Judgment and Efficient Precaution in Tort law
Abstract
By reinterpreting Savage axioms as axioms of the social rationality over resource allocations, we derive a social welfare function encompassing individual social values and a social attitude towards distributional inequality. Wealth maximization becomes the purpose of law only if individuals have equal social values and the society does not care about distributional inequality. In tort law, when the injurer is less socially valued than the victim, the society imposes a stricter due precaution level, and punitive damages will be awarded. Tort law also implicitly transfers wealth from the less socially valued party to the more socially valued party.Download Info
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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Law and Economics with number 0505004.Length: 28 pages
Date of creation: 06 May 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwple:0505004
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 28. forthcoming in JITE
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Web page: http://128.118.178.162
Related research
Keywords: rationality; value judgement; tort law; punitive damage;Other versions of this item:
- Mingli Zheng & Sajid Anwar, 2005. "Rational Legal Decision-Making, Value Judgment, and Efficient Precaution in Tort Law," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 161(3), pages 411-, September.
- D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
- K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process
- K49 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Other
References
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