Abstract
Taking Guido Calabresi's discussion of preferences and value judgements in The Future of Law and Economics as a starting point, this paper analyses some conceptual difficulties, epistemic benefits and normative uses of parsimonious economic analyses of "tastes and values." First, the paper shows that it is not only possible to analyse and model all the richness of "tastes and values" in terms of rational choice theory with intellectual honesty and epistemic benefit. In fact, economists and economically inspired legal scholars have been doing this for a while. Second, it discusses three arguments that economists can mount in support of parsimonious models. Third, it shows that in spite of these benefits the merits of such an exercise in parsimony do not always clearly outweigh its drawbacks. In doing so, the paper distinguishes three types of limits of such parsimonious modelling.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 20190001 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Global Jurist |
Volume | 19 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 29 Oct 2019 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2019 |
Keywords
- Guido Calabresi
- law and economics: methodology
- parsimony in economic theory
- vales and morality in economic theory
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'The Uneasy Case for Parsimony in (Law and) Economics: Conceptual, Empirical and Normative Arguments'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Profiles
-
Peter Cserne
- School of Law, Law - Personal Professor
- School of Law, Centre for Commercial Law
Person: Academic