Steven M. Shavell

Courses

Analytical Methods for Lawyers (taught with David Cope, Howell Jackson and Louis Kaplow)
Lawyers in almost every area of practice (litigation, corporate, government, public interest) deal routinely with problems that are usefully illuminated by basic business and economic concepts. This course is designed to teach the most important analytical methods to law students, in a manner that will be fully accessible to those with no prior quantitative training or background in the subjects covered. We will use a combination of text, classroom activities, instructional software and written exercises. We will show you how these tools may be used to analyze concrete problems that arise in a wide range of legal practice settings.The course will consist of seven units:

Decision Analysis, Games and Information
Lawyers assist their clients in making a wide variety of decisions, ranging from the settlement of lawsuits to the purchase of property. We will explore a standard technique that has been developed to organize thinking about decision-making problems and to solve them. We will also consider strategic interactions between parties and considerations related to imperfect information.

Contracting
Lawyers write many contracts, concerning such matters as acquisitions of land or corporations, creation of partnerships and nonprofit entities, settlement of lawsuits, financing arrangements and government procurement. This unit presents practical principles concerning what issues should be addressed in contracts and how they might be best resolved.

Accounting
Lawyers who counsel clients in conducting their affairs or who represent them in litigation must understand parties' financial circumstances and dealings, which often are repsresented in financial statements. Basic accounting concepts will be introduced, and the relationship between accounting and economic reality will be examined.

Finance
Legal advice in business transactions, division of assets upon divorce, litigation, and many other matters require knowledge of valuation, assessment of financial risk and comprehension of the relationship betwen those who provide financing and those who need it. We will consider basic principles of finance, such as present value, the tradeoff between risk and return, conflicts among groups, the importance of diversification and basic methods for valuing financial assets.

Microeconomics
Lawyers need to understand that their clients' and other parties' economic situations and opportunities as well as the principles that underlie many of the rules of our legal system. This unit presents basic economic concepts - the operation of competitive markets, imperfect competition and market failures - that are necessary to this understanding.

Law and Economics
Legal rules have important effects on clients' interests, which must be appreciated by lawyers who advise them and by judges, regulators and lesgislators who formulate legal rules. We will explore these effects using the economic approach to law, with illustrations from torts, contracts, property law enforcement and legal procedure.

Statistics and Regression
Legal matters increasingly involve the use of statistics in business contexts, in the promulgation of government regulations, in the measurement of damages, in attempts to make inferences concerning parties' behavior (such as those regarding discrimination and employment) and in determination of causation (in tort, contract and other disputes). We will address the basic conepts of statistics and regression analysis, as well as issues that commonly arise when statistics are used in the courtoom.

The Analytical Methods course was initially developed for first-year law students without any prior training in the topics covered, and in prior years, the course was limited to first-year students. As the course introduces students to a range of skills that are useful in both upper-level courses and legal practice, second-and third-year students as well as candidates for LL.M. degrees may also wish to enroll. The course is now open to any Law School student who has not previously taken or is contemporaneously enrolled in two or more of the following Law School courses: Accounting (two credits), Corporate Finance, Economic Analysis of Law, and Statistics/Regressions. Space permitting, students may enroll for the first four units of the course (2 classroom credits = course #30310-32) or the last three units (2 classroom credits = course #30310-33).



Economic Analysis of Law
This course will systematically develop and examine the economic approach to the analysis of law. Property, tort, contract, criminal law and the litigation process will be discussed. Also, the relationship between welfare economics, morality, and the law will be examined.

There are no prerequisites for taking the course; all students are welcome.



Law and Economics Seminar (taught with Lucian Bebchuk and Louis Kaplow)
This seminar (Section A taught in the fall, Section B taught in the spring) will provide students with an opportunity to discuss ongoing research in economic analysis of law. At most of the meetings invited speakers - many from the Law School - will present works in progress. Outside speakers have included Cass Sunstein, Robert Ellickson, Richard Posner, and Richard Revesz.

Students are required to submit, before sessions, brief written comments on the papers to be presented. Enrollment in either or both terms is permitted.

Steven M. Shavell

Books

4. Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004

3. Jackson, Howell, Louis Kaplow, W. Kip Visusi, David Cope & Steven Shavell, Analytical Methods for Lawyers, Foundation Press, 2003

2. Kaplow, Louis & Steven Shavell, Fairness versus Welfare, Harvard University Press, 2002

1. Economic Analysis of Accident Law, Harvard University Press, 1987

Articles

117. Optimal Discretion in the Application of Rules
(American Law and Economics Review, Volume 9, Number 1, June 2007, pages 175-194)

116. On the Proper Magnitude of Punitive Damages: Mathias V. Accor Economy Lodging
(Harvard Law Review, Volume 120, March 2007, pages 1223-1227)

115. Do Excessive Legal Standards Discourage Desirable Activity?
(Economic Letters, Volume 95, 2007, pages 394-397)

114. On the Writing and Interpretation of Contracts
(Journal of Law, Economics & Organization, Volume 22, Number 2, October 2006, pages 289-314)

113. Rosenberg, David & Steven Shavell, A Solution to the Problem of Nuisance Suits: The Option to Have the Court Bar Settlement
(International Review of Law and Economics, Volume 26, Issue 1, March 2006, pages 42-51)

112. Is Breach of Contract Immoral?
(Emory Law Journal, Volume 56, No. 2, 2006, pages 439-460)

111. Specific Performance versus Damages for Breach of Contract: An Economic Analysis
(Texas Law Review, Volume 84, Number4, March 2006, pages 831-876)

110. The Appeals Process and Adjudicator Incentives
(Journal of Legal Studies, Volume 35, 2006, pages 1-29)

109. Holdup, Contracts, and Legal Intervention
(Journal of Legal Studies, forthcoming)

108. Rosenberg, David & Steven Shavell, A Simple Proposal to Halve Litigation Costs
(University of Virginia Law Review, Volume 91, 2005, pages 1721-1735)

107. Minimum Asset Requirements and Compulsory Liability Insurance as Solutions to the Judgment-Proof Problem
(RAND Journal of Economics, Volume 36, Number 1, Spring 2005, pages 63-77)

106. Kaplow, Louis & Steven Shavell, Reply to Ripstein: Notes on Welfarist versus Deontological Principles
(Economics and Philosophy, Volume 20, 2004, page 209)

105. Lando, Henrik & Steven Shavell, The Advantage of Focusing Law Enforcement Effort
(International Review of Law & Economics, Volume 24, 2004, pages 209-218)

104. Any Non-Welfarist Method of Policy Assessment Violates the Pareto Principle: Reply
(Journal of Political Economy, Volume 112, Number 1, Part 1, February 2004, pages 249-251)

103. Kaplow, Louis & Steven Shavell, Fairness versus Welfare: Notes on the Pareto Principle, Preferences, and Distributive Justice
(Journal of Legal Studies, Volume 32, Number 1, January 2003, pages 331-362)

102. Law versus Morality as Regulators of Conduct
(American Law and Economics Review, Volume 4, Number 2, 2002, pages 227-257)

101. Kaplow, Louis & Steven Shavell, On the Superiority of Corrective Taxes to Quantity Regulation
(American Law and Economics Review, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2002, pages 1-17)

100. Spier, Kathryn E. & Steven Shavell, Threats Without Binding Commitment
(Topics in Economic Analysis & Policy, Volume 2, Number 1, 2002, article 2)

99. Kaplow, Louis & Steven Shavell, Economic Analysis of Law
(Handbook of Public Economics, Volume 3, Alan J. Auerbach and Martin Feldstein (editors), Elsevier, 2002, pages 1661-1784)

98. Shavell, Steven & Tanguy van Ypersele, Rewards versus Intellectual Property Rights
(Journal of Law and Economics, Volume 44, Number 2, October 2001, pages 525-547)

97. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Steven Shavell, Corruption and Optimal Law Enforcement
(Journal of Public Economics, Volume 81, Number 1, July 2001, pages 1-24)

96. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Steven Shavell, Law: Economics of its Public Enforcement
(International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 12, Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes (editors), Elsevier, 2001, pages 8510-8517)

95. Law and Economics
(International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 12, Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes (editors), Elsevier, 2001, pages 8446-8452)

94. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Steven Shavell, Punitive Damages: An Economic Perspective
(Chapter 13 of Litigation Services Handbook, Third edition, Roman L. Weil, Michael J. Wagner, Peter B. Frank (editors), John Wiley & Sons, 2001)

93. Kaplow, Louis & Steven Shavell, Any Non-Welfarist Method of Policy Assessment Violates the Pareto Principle
(Journal of Political Economy, Volume 109, Number 2, April 2001, pages 281-286)

92. Kaplow, Louis & Steven Shavell, Fairness versus Welfare
(Harvard Law Review, Volume 114, Number 4, February 2001, pages 961-1388)

91. Kaplow, Louis & Steven Shavell, Notions of Fairness versus The Pareto Principle: On the Role of Logical Consistency
(Yale Law Journal, Volume 110, Number 2, November 2000, pages 237-249)

90. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Steven Shavell, The Fairness of Sanctions: Some Implications for Optimal Enforcement Policy
(American Law and Economics Review, Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2000, pages 223-237)

89. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Steven Shavell, Public Enforcement of Law
(Encyclopedia of Law and Economics, Volume V, Boudewijn Bouckaert and Gerritt De Geest (editors), Edward Elgar, Northamptom, MA, 2000, pages 307-344)

88. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Steven Shavell, Punitive Damages
(Encyclopedia of Law and Economics, Volume II, Boudewijn Bouckaert and Gerritt De Geest (editors), Edward Elgar, Northamptom, MA, 2000, pages 764-781)

87. Kaplow, Louis & Steven Shavell, Should Legal Rules Favor the Poor? Clarifying the Role of Legal Rules and the Income Tax in Redistributing Income
(Journal of Legal Studies, Volume 29, Number 2, June 2000, pages 821-835)

86. Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Steven Shavell, The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law
(Journal of Economic Literature, Volume 38, Number 1, March 2000, pages 45-76)

85. On the Social Function and the Regulation of Liability Insurance
(Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance, Issues and Practice, Volume 25, Number 2, April 2000, pages 166-179)

84. Kaplow, Louis & Steven Shavell, The Conflict Between Notions of Fairness and the Pareto Principle
(American Law and Economics Review, Volume 1, Numbers 1 & 2, Fall 1999, pages 63-77)

83. Bebchuk, Lucian & Steven Shavell, Reconsidering Contractual Liability and the Incentive to Reveal Information
(Stanford Law Review, Volume 51, Number 6, July 1999, pages 1615-1627)

82. The Level of Litigation: Private versus Social Optimality
(International Review of Law and Economics, Volume 19, Number 1, March 1999, pages 99-115)