Introduction

Abstract

The past twenty years have witnessed a surge in behavioral studies of law and law-related issues. These studies have challenged the application of the rational-choice model to legal analysis and introduced a more accurate and empirically grounded model of human behavior. This integration of economics, psychology, and law is breaking exciting ground in legal theory and the social sciences, shedding a new light on age-old legal questions as well as cutting-edge policy issues. The Oxford Handbook of Behavioral Economics and Law brings together leading scholars of law, psychology, and economics to provide an up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of this field of research, including its strengths and limitations as well as a forecast of its future development. Its twenty-nine chapters are organized into four parts. The first part provides a general overview of behavioral economics. The second part comprises four chapters introducing and criticizing the contribution of behavioral economics to legal theory. The third part discusses specific behavioral phenomena, their ramifications for legal policymaking, and their reflection in extant law. Finally, the fourth part analyzes the contribution of behavioral economics to fifteen legal spheres ranging from core doctrinal areas such as contracts, torts, and property to areas such as taxation and antitrust policy.

Regulating for integration by behavioral design: An evidence‐based approach for culturally responsive regulation

“…Despite great advances in the internalization of behavioral insights by regulators and scholars around the world (Sunstein 2014;Zamir & Teichman 2018), to date there have been no significant attempts to synthesize the behavioral approach to public policy (Sunstein 2013) and responsive regulation (Ayres & Braithwaite 1992). This is unfortunate because there are quite a few similarities in the motivations behind the two approaches, including the pragmatic motivation to find a 'third alternative/way' to regulation (Ayres & Braithwaite 1992, p. 3, Thaler & Sunstein 2008, which is attentive to the characteristics of the rule-takers and prefers soft measures to coercion.…”

The Marketing Firm and the Consumer Organization: A Comparative Analysis With Special Reference to Charitable Organizations

“…The costs associated with this process include those of incentivization, information, and communication ( Posner, 2014 , p. 534): the employee in this situation is not paid in direct proportion to what he produces and thus has no incentive to reduce the costs incurred by his labor – he may moreover actively freeload on his co-workers; the employees are unaware of the prices paid for the resources they use, knowledge of which would tend to dictate the most profitable usages of such resources; the issuing of orders by top management and the monitoring of subsequent production requires an effective two-way means of communication. The costs involved in these activities in which the principal (shareholder, director, manager) seeks to maximize the efficiency of the agents (managers, employees) through whom the wishes of the principal are effected are known as agency costs; they are mainly incurred in the effort to maintain agents’ loyalty ( Dnes, 2018 ; Zamir and Teichman, 2018 ).…”

A Behavioural-economic Perspective on Conflicts of Interest Among Shareholders, Debtholders, and Directors

“…On the other hand, by harnessing developments in cognitive science (psychology), we can deepen our understanding of the structure of law from a behavioural (psychological) perspective as well. This approach—looking at the law as a dual structure of economic and behavioural layers—is part of behavioural law and economics research, as represented in leading literature, including Jolls, Sunstein, and Thaler (1998), Korobkin and Ulen (2000), Langevoort (2012), Winter (2018), and Zamir and Teichman (2018). In Japan, prior research from the behavioural-economic perspective includes Tanaka (2018) on hindsight bias in jurisprudence, Asaoka (2018) on boards of directors and Asaoka (2019) on mergers and acquisitions decisions.…”