Law and Economics (3rd Edition)

In a sense, this book is quite curious. Because law and economics is a discipline in its infancy, a book of this nature has to tread the fine line between serving as a distanced text and engaging in the dialogue of current research. And in both respects, Cooter and Ulen do a magnificent job of doing just that.
Law and economics is a branch of jurisprudence that aims to frame legal questions in terms of economic efficiency. While some maintain that legal questions can purely be reduced to economic ones, Cooter and Ulen take - rightly, in my view - the more conservative stance that economics can describe at least part of the legal question. It turns out, however, that the methodologies presented in this book are useful in reducing most legal problems to ones of economic efficiency.
This is a textbook for beginners. It presupposes virtually no knowledge on economics or law -- a brief synopsis of microeconomics and English common law system is presented at the outset. The rest of the book utilizes economic methodologies in analyzing legal problems of property, contract, torts, common law and criminal law.
However, there is a caveat. As law and economics is a burgeoning and diverse field, many important details are omitted. Most notably, the distinction between different schools of law and economics is saliently missing. This book adopts the "Posnerian" or "Chicago" school of law and economics; that is, analyzing legal questions using the framework of wealth maximization. This scaffold is one of many schools of law and economics, including the "Virginia School" and the "Rochester School."
Taking this into note, however, does not mitigate this book's clarity or exposition. This is a solid although incomplete introduction to law and economics. Recommended.
http://www.x45.info/?plM9I