Costs and Cautionary Tales: Economic Insights for the Law by Anthony Ogus
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2008.00728.x |
| Published date | 01 November 2008 |
| Date | 01 November 2008 |
| Author | Nuno Garoupa |
REVIEWS
Anthony Ogus, Costs and Cautionary Tales: Economic Insights for the Law,
Oxford and Portland: HartPublishing, 2006, xiv þ320 pp, pb d21.00.
This excellentbook is not a conventional introduction toan economic analysisof
the law. The author, Anthony Ogus, aprofessor of law at theUniversity of Man-
chester and the leading law and economics scholar in the UK, draws upon his
deep knowledgeof the ¢eld to persuade thereader that economic insight is useful
for legal analysis.
The organization of the book does not follow the traditional pattern: it does
not provide an exhaustive account of various branches of law, as is the pattern in
standardAmerican textbooks.Ogus, preferringan innovative approach,addresses
law and economics from a thematic perspective. In my view, this new approach is
ingenious and useful. First, it avoids the standard problem of providing an over-
view of law and economics, which is essentiallydesigned for an American audi-
ence. Second, it emphasizes important concepts rather than trying to show how
economic analysis can be applied to each area of the law. Third, the book being
concept-driven rather than object-based, enables the reader better to understand
the methodology. Having taught law and economics to law students in Europe, I
have come to realize that more conventional textbooks lose the big picture (the
advantages and disadvantages of the economic methodology ) and concentrate
instead on speci¢c details (forexample, the economicmodels of tort or of crime).
The main goal of the book is to explain why law and economics is useful for
lawyers. The emphasis is less on contradicting conventional legal wisdom, and
more on o¡ering implications for legal policy. Overall, the reader is confronted
with a need to understand the behavioural outcomes of the law or legal change.
The fundamental question ^ are these laws or these changes desirable? ^ is
announced at the beginning of the book, but the book does not provide an
answer. Rather, the book teaches the reader how to ¢nd such an answer.
Chapterone provides an overviewof the economic analysis of the lawand the
fundamental concept s used throughout the book. It includes transactio ncos ts,t he
notion of economic e⁄ciency, implicit pricing (for example, in the economics of
crime), public choice, and the di¡erence between normative and positive
approaches.The remainder of the book i s divided into nine themes.They are: (1)
e⁄ciencyand wealth creation (covering property rights, business forms, and co n-
tracts); (2) the general structure of the law; (3) pricing and incentives (examining
criminal sanctions, administrative penalties,taxes, and damages as forms ofimpli-
cit and explicit pricing); (4) risk; (5) corrective justice; (6) wealth maximization;
(7) distributionaljustice and paternalism; (8)lawyers;and (9) the usefulness of law
and economics.
Each chapter combinesan extended explanationof economic concepts applied
to legal issues with interesting examples drawn from English law, while provid-
ing an overview of recent developments in the discipline. Personal stories and
r2008 The Author.Journal Compilation r2008 The Modern Law Review Limited.
Published by BlackwellPublishing, 9600 Garsington Road,Oxford OX4 2DQ,UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
(2008) 71 (6) 1032 ^1049
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