Legal rules and jurisprudence can have a significant effect on resource allocation. A key question is whether legal regimes affect the optimality of an equilibrium and succeed in bringing society closer to a welfare maximizing outcome. From another perspective, a relevant question is on the objective or motivation behind the enactment of specific legislation. Recent studies suggest that much legislation is consistent with simple welfare concepts developed by economists. The course focuses on these issues with examples drawn from property, contract, tort, and criminal law. Prereq: ECON 201, 211; Level at least 3A Honours students or Economics majors. Antireq: ECON 381 taken Spring 2009
