Contribution to Book
The Economics of Activity Levels and Negligence Standards
Research Handbook on Economic Models of Law
(2013)
Abstract
More than 25 years ago, when law and economics was just beginning and its analyses were still at an attention-grabbing but hazy stage, there was a vigorous scholarly search for the efficiency and equitable differences between negligence and strict liability. The accepted doctrinal distinction between the standards was reasonably clear, but those differences did not map clearly onto efficiency and equity differences. For a period of years, Richard Posner, in his field-defining text, asserted that the central principle for tort law was to identify and assign liability to the “least-cost avoider” so as to create an incentive for future, potential tortfeasors to investigate their comparative precaution costs and for whichever of them had the lower avoidance costs to take care. There are, as we will see, some fundamental problems with this view. Nonetheless, for many years this was the principal analytical distinction between negligence and strict liability among those glancingly familiar with law and economics.
Keywords
- activity levels,
- liability
Disciplines
- Law and
- Law and Economics
Publication Date
2013
Editor
Thomas J. Miceli and Matthew Baker
Citation Information
Nuno Garoupa and Thomas S. Ulen. "The Economics of Activity Levels and Negligence Standards" Research Handbook on Economic Models of Law (2013) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/nunogaroupa/106/