Category:Law as Efficiency: Law and Economics

Law as Efficiency: Law and Economics
Generally speaking, the study of economics concerns distribution outcomes involving scarce resources. Less generally, economic thought can be broken into positivist and normative accounts. Positivist economics concerns how and why people respond to changes in market conditions. Normative economics utilizes positivist findings and presents strategies for organizing market behaviour to achieve efficient allocations of resources. Law and economics is simply a normative economic approach to law.

Economics is fascinated by human behaviour surrounding the allocation of scarce resources. Before delving into normative economic theories, it is important to unpack some of the study’s primary concepts and elementary assumptions about human behaviour and what ideal allocation of resources looks like.

Rational Person Theory
Most economic models assume that people are rational. This is known as the rational person theory. The theory assumes people make rational decisions about their allocation of resources and efforts. Most economic models of human behaviour attempt to predict how people will respond given fixed amounts of supply of and demand for resources. Assuming people are rational allows economists to generalize human behaviour in different scenarios where the supply of and demand for resources shifts. This assumption draws much criticism; however, many economists justify the assumption in that it allows their theories to make moderately accurate predictions about how people will act in differing scenarios.

Perfect Information
A rational person makes decisions that are in their best interest. This is not to be confused with a person with perfect knowledge, however. The assumption that people possess perfect knowledge is sometimes made in economic models. In these models, people react quickly to changes in supply and demand. This assumption is not always clearly stated, and while it draws much attention, assuming that people possess equal information enables economists to predict how people would act in situations where market changes in supply and demand occur. In law and business, it is often the different amounts of information of the parties that enables one to be more successful than another. Assuming that all people equally possess perfect information about the willingness to sell of other parties is a fiction that makes law and economics models difficult to apply.

In contrast with the assumption of perfect information, economists sometimes deal with models where people possess different information about market conditions. This is known as information asymmetry. Neo-classical economists, who take a normative approach to how policies concerning economic activity ought to be organized, believe that these scenarios lead to an inefficient distribution of resources.

Efficiency
Efficiency refers to the maximization of social welfare. Law and economics scholars think this is achieved when resources are allocated in a way that produces the greatest benefit. The greatest benefit means the total benefit of all the parties. Underlying the principle of efficiency is the premise that resources should be allocated to those who value them most. Economists assume people are rational and attain value from all of their purchases. Economists persist that efficiency results when everyone makes the most individually beneficial decisions in markets where competition exists.

The presence of competition is important to economists. Competition for market share between firms is necessary to lower prices. Economists think that efficient firms price their goods and services at the cost of production. When a firm prices goods and services higher than the cost of production, competing firms will take their market share. To enable competition, economists argue that barriers to enter markets should be eliminated. When barriers are eliminated, free-entry into markets allows competition to enter, and prices to correct to the cost of production.

It is assumed that people want goods and services, and that at each price point, either more or less people will be interested in them. When firms price goods and services at the cost of production, it allows the greatest number of people to purchase the good or service. This results in more collective benefit from the sale of the good or service. In this way, the collective utility of the greatest number of parties results in the most efficient outcome. If product prices fall below the cost of production this will cease to occur. When this happens producer receive negative utility for the production of their goods and services. So, economists say, firms should price their goods and services at the cost of product to compete with other firms, and provide the best value to society.

Richard Posner, a law and economics academic, holds efficiency to be synonymous with justice. He asserts that, where the study of law and economics is criticized for ignoring justice, "a second meaning of justice, perhaps the most common is -efficiency." Cole and Grossman, "Principles of Law and Economics" 2005 Pearson Prentice Hall (Upper Saddle River New Jersey) p. 51

Externalities
Externalities are costs required to produce goods and services that are not accounted for in in the price of the good or service. This is a popular area in the study of law and economics because much of law is concerned with accounting for costs unjustly bore by other parties. It is on this point that law and economics scholars argue that the law should internalize costs bore by parties that are not reflected in the prices of goods and services. This assertion arises from the position that social welfare is not maximized when the costs of producing goods and services are paid by those who do not receive value from them.

Ideologically, law and economics scholars refer to the amelioration of externalities as 'internalizing' externalities. In application this means that externality bearer should be compensated by the firms that produce externalities, and that the value of compensation should be reflected in the price of those goods and services. Much like how a monopoly prices goods and services too high, when firms produce goods and services that are the subject of externalities, the prices for these goods and services are set too low. As a result, society will consume more of these goods than is efficient. For each unit of production, a part of the cost of amelioration is bore by a party that receives only negative utility.

A common example of an externality is smog produced by a power plant. If air pollution were spread evenly to all consumers of electricity, the consumers would benefit equally from reductions in air pollution. When this is not the case, those people living in area where the plant's air pollution gathers face an additional costs for their consumption. In effect, the consumers of electricity that reside outside of the air pollution area, benefit from the externality. Home owners surrounding the power plant will experience a decrease in utility equal to the cost of the air-pollution. What avenues for justice can be utilized to internalize the cost to these parties? Is is where law and economics scholars weigh in.

An Approach to Property Rights
Law and economics scholars think property rights should be allocated to unburden the bearers of externalities. They think that everything should be for sale, and they justify this idea by the ability of firms to readily compensation those infringed by their activities. The goal is to enable firms to efficiently price their products, and the means require that firms are able determine the value of their infringement of the rights of others.

For Economists, everything that people receive value from should be viewed as sellable property. The result may yield a greater sense of justice for all parties; however, the normative assertions of law and economics scholars believe that the costs of intruding on the rights of others should exist without barriers, too. This means that property rights of all people should be made alienable. The law and economics scholars argue that in making all property rights alienable, society has the best chance of maximizing social welfare. In other words, society has the greatest ability to produce the goods and services people are willing to buy at prices that represent the true costs of production when everyone can be compensated without restriction. Critics of law and economics claim that not everything is alienable. One argument is that a person cannot enjoy caviar if they cease to have a digestive tract. Some focus on the value of inalienable human rights. In general, a concern arises where law and economics scholars treat the subjective value people place on their rights as an objective commodity. While this criticism is strong, law and economics scholars look closer at how parties benefit from selling their rights and find ways of demonstrating how efficient outcomes result when parties are compensated for externalities.

Pareto Efficiency
Pareto efficiency is more of a rule about how parties should continue to make trades until it is no longer in their best interest to continue trading. Pareto efficient may involve many parties and transactions. Its outcome says that parties should stop trading when all beneficial trades have been exhausted. A simple example might involve a property owner, and a coal miner who holds a licence to mine on the owner’s land. Assuming the two parties have a contract that entitles the land owner to $1 per 100lbs. of coal that is mined from her land, and that she possess the right to stop the miner from mining, the land owner should stop the mining at the point when she no longer is willing to receive $1 for each 100lbs. of coal that is extracted. The Pareto optimal trade is the last trade in a series of trades where both parties still receive some benefit from the exchange. The concept, when simplified, suggests that parties conduct business where it is in their best interest.

In a scenario involving externalities, three parties or more may be involved in a transaction. In the example above, a woman named Abby sells a licence to extract coal from her land to a miner named Bob. Meanwhile, Don represents a home owners association whose members all own homes along the road from Abby’s land to Bob’s final destination, a dock located at Port Thompson, 10 miles away. While Bob is mining coal, he loads trucks that carry 100lbs of the coal at a time to the port. The home owner’s represented by Don feel that the mining activity is impacting their property rights, and seek to be compensated $1 per 100lbs as a result. It is with fact such as these that the Pareto efficiency rule applies. The rule suggests that the exchange between the parties should continue so long as Bob receives enough value from the coal he mines to compensate the parties. Bob should continue mining so long as he still receives benefit from doing so; alternatively, Abby should permit Bob to mine so long as she receives benefit in doing so.

This might sound sufficient in theory, but what powers do the home owners have in reality? Law and economics scholars have realized that Pareto efficiency is a bit of a fiction in reality. While the Pareto efficiency theory might provide a nice way of looking at things in the abstract, those whose property rights have been impacted do not often possess the power to accept limited amounts of compensation, nor do they have the sufficient negotiating power to stop industrial activities in actual scenarios. For this reason, many law and economics scholars turn to the Kaldor-Hicks criterion.

Kaldor-Hicks Efficiency
The Kaldor-Hicks criterion is considered to be a more realistic application of economic principles. Like Pareto efficiency, the Kaldor-Hicks criterion asserts that producers should pursue production until it no longer benefits them to do so. The Kaldor-Hicks criterion can be used to test whether a Pareto optimal exchange has occurred in the process of internalizing externalities; however, under the Kaldor-Hicks criterion, it is possible to continue beyond the Pareto optimal exchange. The theory assumes that efficient transactions are those whose production costs have internalized externality costs by including the cost of compensating property rights holders impacted by the production of the good or service. In other words, efficient market transactions understood as Pareto efficient will also be Kaldor-Hicks efficient.

The Kaldor-Hicks criterion aims at internalizing production costs bore by property holders so that markets can run efficiently, and consumers do not over-consume at the expense of those property rights holders who bear the costs of externalities. But, some additional characteristics and distinctions are involved in the Kaldor-Hicks criterion. Where parties are said to reach a Pareto optimal result when they trade until no more trades can be made that benefit the parties, the Kaldor-Hicks criterion suggests that production should continue until externality bearing parties are willing to pay producers to stop production. While the Pareto model assumes that externality bearers should be free to set the value of their rights at a level that represents subjectively represents the utility they receive from retaining them, the Kaldor-Hicks criterion suggests otherwise. Externality cost bearers do not receive compensation voluntarily under the Kaldor-Hicks criterion. Another important distinction is that the value of their rights is objectively assessed. In the Kaldor-Hicks criterion, the point at which a producer should stop production may be decided by the externality bearer when they offer to pay the producer an amount equal to their benefit from production. In other words, externality bearing parties, under the Kaldor-Hicks criterion, can stop producers only by paying them to stop. This roughly means that if property rights holders want their rights back they must bribe producers to stop production.

In the example used earlier, where miner bob mines coal on Abby’s land and pays her for a licence to do so, and pays an amount equal to the compensation for the road homes association, the application is quite clear. The mining activity should continue until the home owners are willing to pay Bob to stop. The home owners association may receive $1 for each 100lbs of coal shipped, at the discretion of some policy making authority; however, mining should continue until either Bob is paid by the home owner’s association for the mining to stop, or until he no longer benefits from production. The amount of benefit received by Bob for mining is now the responsibility of the externality bearing party should they wish him to stop mining.

In isolation, the Kaldor-Hicks efficiency criterion requires that the unit price for goods and services properly reflects production costs. When property rights are infringed upon, it means that compensation must be objectively assessed and included into the cost of production and thereby passing-on the cost of the externality to consumers. However, the Kaldor-Hicks principle does not actually require that compensation is paid out. Whether compensation is paid is a matter for the policy authority to decide. Surprisingly, the criterion looks at market prices and emphasizes the injustice of transactions where the value of externalities artificially reduces the cost of production. This is because the low-price of a product will encourage consumers to purchase the product and increase the cost of the externality that is bore by another party. This means that the injustice of the externality is for a policy authority to resolve. Additionally, the theory supposes that compensation of externality bearing parties is non-voluntary. Parties that bear the cost of externalities should be the forced to surrender their property rights for an objectively assessed amount.

Where the ability of externality bearing parties to sell their rights for subjectively determined values would normally be a good way of assessing what their rights are worth to them, the Kaldor-Hicks principle may be more in line with reality. In actual fact, the value that externality bearing parties place on their rights is realized in the Kaldor-Hicks criterion when these parties decide to pay producers to stop producing. One criticism that comes to mind here is that the bargaining power of externality bearing parties can easily be manipulated when these parties simply cannot afford to pay producers to stop production.

While Kaldor-Hicks aims to see the cost of externalities become internalized into the price of the products, the theory is often used by policy makers who wish to create cost internalization schemes in order to capture market externalities before they are realized by those who bear their costs. Ultimately, the Kaldor-Hicks criterion balances the disutility of losers with the utility of winners. At the expense of allowing winners to win more, the criterion makes property right holders responsible for industry and any costs it creates that might fall onto them. Many economists disregard the Kaldor-Hicks criterion for this reason, and find, that while the criterion might be a good way test whether Pareto efficiency has been achieved, normatively restricting parties from setting their own prices and conducting their own affairs has dire consequences.

Ronald Coase
In his first publication on economics, “the Nature of the Firm,” Ronald Coase defines firms as utility deriving mechanisms that reduce transactions costs. In subsequent writings his idea took hold as a concept for law and economics. His position, that individuals face all kinds of costs when they try to do business on their own, was reformulated in subsequent writings. The principle of firms reducing transaction costs illustrates that hiring someone to answer a telephone makes sense when it is reasonable to expect lots of telephone calls; however, if you do not expect many telephone calls, and you are in business for yourself, it might be a better idea to answer the phone yourself.

Now imagine you are a lawyer with your own one-person firm, should you answer the phone when you could instead be advising a client? In this example, a transaction cost is defined as the cost of either answering the phone yourself, or not answering it at all. An efficient solution would be to hire someone to answer the phone where these transactions costs are greater than an employee's salary. An even better solution would be for several lawyers to gather together, and hire an employee to answers all of their phones. Firms, like in this example bundle all kinds of costs, and divide them, reducing the cost of production for all kinds of goods and services.

For Coase, transaction costs can represent many kinds of expenses. When two parties get together to bargain, the costs of their doing so are transaction costs, but the bargain may also include exchanging property rights, like a tort or contract dispute. Transaction costs will include lawyer fees, and even the costs like driving a vehicle to a market place or court house. Transactions costs emerge between two parties each time they seek to make an exchange of any kind. Sometimes transaction costs are referred to in contracts as being the responsibility of a particular party, and other times they are simply absorbed as a cost of doing business.

In a later publication, "the Problem of Social Cost," the Coase theorem emerges. The theorem holds that, when transaction costs are low, conflicted parties will reach economically efficient solutions by themselves. This theory has been used to support many kinds of non-government approaches to dispute resolution, and many lawyers consider the idea as support for solving legal problems through settlements.

Looking Closer: Reducing Unwanted Behaviour
Ultimately, for law and economics scholars efficiency requires that there will always be some criminal offences and avoidable accidents in society. To eliminate them all would simply cost more than a society should be willing to pay. Underpinning this idea is the concept of diminishing marginal returns. An analogy for diminishing marginal returns can be made from picking blueberries. A person can pick blueberries from a bush with great success if the bush has not already been picked that season. At first, the berries will be easy to pick, but as the picker continues, eventually a point is reached where each basket takes longer to fill than the last. This concept is known to economists as diminishing marginal returns. The notion that eliminating all risk of injury is out of the question for most economists; however, for some activities the threshold of elimination and acceptance is higher than others.

Economists think society’s interest in the reduction of avoidable accidents and criminal offences is limited by what society is willing to pay for reduction. In other words, for economists, reductions in crime and avoidable accidents are considered in terms of units of reduction. A reduction in criminal activity, for instance, is viewed as a purchase. Economists hold the view that, at some point, the purchase of each unit of crime or accident prevention will steadily increase until it exceeds what society is willing to pay.

An overview of Law and Economics in Tort Dimock’s survey tort law as examined by law and economics scholars focuses on efficient avoidable accident reduction, and the consequences of applying liability structures under various conditions. The thrust of her writing holds that economists seek to make parties liable, depending on the cost of their alternatives, in order to achieve an efficient distribution of compensation.

In tort law, law and economics scholars focus on liability assignments for intentional and non-intentional torts. In Dimock, these include negligence, absolute victim liability, and absolute injurer liability. In negligence, parties that possess a duty are found to be responsible for taking care to prevent accidents. Economists note how the duty requirement enables parties to act solely in their best interests where no duty to do otherwise exists, and creates incentives for duty holders to act cautiously. Contributory negligence, creates incentives on potentially injured parties to prevent injury also. Absolute victim liability means that the duty to prevent injury rests with the victim. This can sometimes be used to prevent accidents from causing severe damage, where parties have a choice not to engage in the activity. Results can be efficient where parties knowingly possess thin skull attributes, or can prevent damage by taking safety precautions. Such rules would appear to be at work in insurance law where injured parties in car accidents will be barred from claims for not wearing seat-belts. The final liability assignment is absolute injurer liability. Absolute injurer liability exists when injuring parties are held responsible for all damage, regardless of their level of precaution. It is important to note that in addition to these liability structures analyzed by Dimock, that no fault liability exists also, where both parties are responsible to share the costs of compensation. This final form is used by the province of Ontario for vehicle insurance, and in establishing fault for vehicle accidents in parking lots throughout Canada.

Law and economics scholars think that these assignments should be cautiously made for the purpose of reducing avoidable accidents to an efficient level. In pursuit of efficiency, economists focus on methods of reducing avoidable accidents, also. This involves examining the opportunity costs of parties to discover whose accident reduction behaviour faces is least expensive. In other words, parties who can most easily prevent accidents should, and liabilities for not doing so should be assigned to impose a duty to take better care on these parties whenever possible. Sometimes imposing liabilities on innocent parties appears strange; however, economists will always seek to prevent damage at the lowest cost, despite how unjust it might otherwise appear. Law and economic scholars think that interference with the property or welfare of others should not be frowned upon when, after compensating injured parties, it is in the best interest of the injuring party.

An overview of Law and Economics in Criminal Law Dimock’s examines criminal law from a law and economics perspective. She presents law and economic scholar’s concerns with when it is best to use sanctions verses incentives, an efficient level of crime reduction, and how to reduce crime through the correct use of penalties and enforcement.

The question economists often ask is, when should society use criminal law? Most of the time the question actually points to when people should be penalized, and economists are often quick to say that the loss of freedoms is best achieved by fines. When the person whose behaviour you wish to control is unable to pay, their behaviour will likely not be altered by fines, and therefore, prison must be considered.

Another question economists are concerned with is how much should society spend on crime reductions. Having addressed the efficient amount of crime reduction earlier, this might be a good place to talk about the best way to reduce crime. Economists talk about curtailing criminal behaviour by looking at penalties and the cost of enforcing them. By setting penalties high, for instance, people will be incentivized not to commit crimes; however, what if they thought they would never get caught. The balance between enforcement of penalties and the cost of getting caught creates a matrix that economists think criminals consider. Economists think people weigh penalties against the probability of their being penalized before deciding whether to commit an offence.

This enables policy makers to consider how best to set penalties, and allocate police funding. The most important factor in determining how to set a penalty is the cost of the behaviour to others. If the offence is car theft, the cost will be the value of the car being stolen and any additional transaction costs involved with having a car stolen. Since perfect enforcement is never possible, the penalties should always outweigh the possible gains of committing offences. This means that the punishment should never allow anyone to think that it is in their best interest to commit car theft. However, considering how high the penalty should be set involves an acknowledgment of the probability of the offender’s getting caught. Another consideration should be made by considering the cost of increasing the likelihood of capturing criminals against the societal cost of increasing the penalty.

criminal offences as though they occur against property. Law and economics scholars take the view that people’s personal rights, including those such as intrusion of their physical bodies, can be viewed as an intrusion upon a person’s property.

An overview of Law and Economics in Contract Law Dimock looks at contract law from a law and economics perspective by focusing on it maintains incentives to efficient exchange. Contract law is found by law and economics scholars, like Posner, to be flexible about agreements, with the object of preserving efficient exchanges.

Dimock finds the requirement of consideration to be an area of contract law that embraces economic theories of efficiency. In effect, consideration excludes contractual obligations from gift giving activities, which means that gift givers do not need to be as careful under the law as those engaging in consideration supported agreements. In Dimock, the position is that more utility results from contract law’s dismissal of enforcing gratuitous agreements.

Remedies for contractual breach are regarded as efficient by law and economics scholars, also. The idea that a contractually bound party may breach a contract as a matter of efficiency is at the heart of law and economics. Law and economics scholars support this idea, and find that it is not in the best interests of society for contract law to penalize parties for acting in their best interests. For instance consider a firm that enters into a contract to sell a good, only to later learn that they can sell the same good to another party for more. In these cases, where they can sell to the other party for so much more that they can afford to pay expectation damages and still carry out the deal, contract law allows them to do so. In effect, law and economic theorists think that people should only be obligated to make good on their promises when it is in their best interest. This is not to say that their promises should be discounted by changes in the market.

Applied to the Case:
Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General), is a case about Quebec health and insurance legislation that prevents the creation of a two tier health care system in Quebec. In the case, the court found that the right to security of the person was not being upheld by the existence of the legislation. The case turns on the evidence of Mr. Chaoulli, who suffers as a result of long lineups and waiting periods preventing him from receiving reasonably prompt health care treatments.

About legal issues used to decide the case, law and economist scholars may not support the affect and jurisdiction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, for some of the same reasons as utilitarians. The idea that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms can be applied to strike down laws whose effect produces an efficient distribution of resources, for the purpose of protecting inalienable rights, will go against some of the motivations of law and economics scholars. The law and economics scholars will ask about the penalties set by the Quebec insurance and health legislation, and inquire into how these amounts were decided on. The aim of law and economics scholars here will be argue that penalties should represent the cost of disobedience of the law to society, multiplied by the chances of getting caught. Law and economics scholar will appreciate the logic of s.1 of the Charter; particularly, they will think that a rational connection to minimal impairment should be found when it can be shown that all parties will bear the lowest cost.

Whether law and economics scholars will be in favour of a two tier health care system will depend on evidence. The costs of health care are quite high in Canada (highest marginal cost in the world, next to America). The reasons for this are many and complex. If a two-tier system can continue to provide services without excluding potential patients, it will be favoured by economists. An analogy can be made of two-tier insurance schemes to market discrimination. Market discrimination is a common form of efficient pricing, used by many kinds of firms. It means that producers can sell their products at a higher price to a portion of society without restricting the availability to the rest of society to purchase at a lower price. An example would be cheap movie night as a major cinema. Movies are usually never released on cheap night, because people who want to see the movie on release night can make a choice to see it, or wait until cheap night, to see it for less.

This might be one of the best ways to look at a two tier health care system, because unfortunately usual law and economics concepts aren't perfectly applicable. The costs borne onto the consumers in this case are a system inefficiency, not a typical externality. One consideration that could be made is that consumers of the short-line health care should be compensating consumers of the longer line. This is because the cost of maintaining the original service will increase when the number of patients decreases. The net effect of two tier systems may be shorter lines for both systems. If evidence supports this, and the costs for the additional system are paid for by the benefit passed onto customers willing to pay more for a shorter line-up, law and economics people will advocate very strongly for the creation of this service.