Behavioral Law and Economics

In the past few decades, economic analysis of law has been challenged by a growing body of experimental and empirical studies that attest to prevalent and systematic deviations from the assumptions of economic rationality. While the findings on bounded rationality and heuristics and biases were initially perceived as antithetical to standard economic and legal-economic analysis, over time they have been largely integrated into mainstream economic analysis, including economic analysis of law. Moreover, the impact of behavioral insights has long since transcended purely economic analysis of law: in recent years, the behavioral movement has become one of the most influential developments in legal scholarship in general.

Behavioral Law and Economics offers a state-of-the-art overview of the field. Eyal Zamir and Doron Teichman survey the entire body of psychological research that lies at the basis of behavioral analysis of law, and critically evaluate the core methodological questions of this area of research. Following this, the book discusses the fundamental normative questions stemming from the psychological findings on bounded rationality, and explores their implications for setting the law's goals and designing the means to attain them. The book then provides a systematic and critical examination of the contributions of behavioral studies to all major fields of law including: property, contracts, consumer protection, torts, corporate, securities regulation, antitrust, administrative, constitutional, international, criminal, and evidence law, as well as to the behavior of key players in the legal arena: litigants and judicial decision-makers.

Eyal Zamir is the Augusto Levi Professor of Commercial Law at the Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he served as Dean of the Faculty of Law from 2002 to 2005. His spheres of interest include economic and behavioral analysis of law, empirical legal studies, contract law and theory, and normative ethics and law. Professor Zamir has been a visiting scholar or visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, NYU, Georgetown, UCLA, and Zurich law schools, and at Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena. He has authored or edited 15 books and published more than 60 articles. His articles were published in leading American and Israeli law reviews, including the Columbia Law Review, the Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Law Review, California Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Law & Social Inquiry-as well as in non-legal journals, such as Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, and Public Administration Review.

Doron Teichman is the Vice Dean and Jacob I. Berman Chair in Law at the Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His spheres of interest include economic and behavioral analysis of law, empirical legal studies, and criminal law. Professor Teichman has taught at leading institutions such as Columbia, Michigan, Texas, and the Center for Transnational Legal Studies. He has authored numerous articles that were published in leading American and Israeli law reviews, including, Michigan Law Review, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, New York University Law Review, and Law & Society Review.