Curriculum Law & Economics: Crime, Contracts & Courts
Law & Economics: Crime, Contracts & Courts
How economists think about laws, punishment, contracts, accidents and courts - and why the rules a society writes shape the choices people make.
- What Is Law and Economics? An introduction to the field that uses economic reasoning to understand how laws shape behaviour, and to ask which rules work best. 📄 Read-aloud
- The Economics of Crime: Gary Becker's Idea How Gary Becker's 1968 paper modelled crime as a choice shaped by expected costs and benefits, and what that model does and does not explain. 📄 Read-aloud
- Certainty vs Severity: What Actually Deters Crime Why research suggests that the chance of being caught matters more for deterrence than the length of the punishment. 📄 Read-aloud
- The Economics of Prisons and Incarceration What prisons cost, the different ways they may reduce crime, and why economists debate whether current levels of incarceration are worth it. 📄 Read-aloud
- The Coase Theorem: Bargaining Over Harm Ronald Coase's insight that, when bargaining is cheap, people can reach efficient outcomes whoever holds the legal right - and why transaction costs usually get in the way. 📄 Read-aloud
- Why Contracts Matter: Trust, Promises and Enforcement How enforceable contracts let strangers cooperate over time, and what the law does when a promise is broken. 📄 Read-aloud
- Law & Economics: Checkpoint 1 Quick checkpoint - five questions on incentives, deterrence, prisons, the Coase theorem and contracts. 5 questions
- Accident Law: Negligence and the Hand Formula How accident law gives people a reason to take reasonable care, and how a famous judge's formula compares the cost of precautions with the expected harm. 📄 Read-aloud
- Why Most Lawsuits Settle Before Trial The economics behind out-of-court settlements, including the cost of trials, shared expectations and the role of optimism. 📄 Read-aloud
- Policing and Crime: What the Evidence Shows How economists measure whether more police reduce crime, and why the answer has been hard to find. 📄 Read-aloud
- The Economics of Drug Prohibition How banning a drug changes its market - prices, violence, product strength and who profits - and why economists debate alternatives. 📄 Read-aloud
- Access to Justice: The Cost of Legal Help Why legal help is expensive, what happens to people who cannot afford it, and the tools societies use to close the gap. 📄 Read-aloud
- Rules vs Standards: Designing Good Laws The trade-off between clear, simple rules and flexible standards, and how lawmakers choose between them. 📄 Read-aloud
- India's Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code How the 2016 bankruptcy law shifted power from defaulting owners to creditors, set time limits for resolving failing companies, and what results it has achieved. 📄 Read-aloud
- Why Indian Courts Are Slow, and What It Costs The scale of pending cases in Indian courts, how slow justice affects contracts, investment and ordinary people, and the reforms aimed at speeding things up. 📄 Read-aloud