The Uneasy Case for Parsimony in (Law and) Economics: Conceptual, Empirical and Normative Arguments

Peter Cserne*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

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 languageEnglish
Article number20190001
Number of pages12
JournalGlobal Jurist
Volume19
Issue number3
Early online date29 Oct 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2019

Keywords

  • Guido Calabresi
  • law and economics: methodology
  • parsimony in economic theory
  • vales and morality in economic theory

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