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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Behavioral Public Choice And The Law, Gary M. Lucas Jr., Slaviša Tasić
Behavioral Public Choice And The Law, Gary M. Lucas Jr., Slaviša Tasić
Faculty Scholarship
Behavioral public choice is the study of irrationality among political actors. In this context, irrationality means systematic bias, a deviation from rational expectations, or other departure from economists’ conception of rationality. Behavioral public choice scholars extend the insights of behavioral economics to the political realm and show that irrational behavior is an important source of government failure. This Article makes an original contribution to the legal literature by systematically reviewing the findings of behavioral public choice and explaining their implications for the law and legal institutions. We discuss the various biases and heuristics that lead political actors to support and …
Do Physicians Respond To Liability Standards?, Michael D. Frakes, Matthew Frank, Seth Seabury
Do Physicians Respond To Liability Standards?, Michael D. Frakes, Matthew Frank, Seth Seabury
Faculty Scholarship
In this paper, we explore the sensitivity in the clinical decisions of physicians to the standards of care expected of them under the law, drawing on the abandonment by states over time of rules holding physicians to standards determined by local customs and the contemporaneous adoption of national-standard rules. Using data on broad rates of surgical interventions at the county-by-year level from the Area Resource File, we find that local surgery rates converge towards national surgery rates upon the adoption of national-standard rules. Moreover, we find that these effects are more pronounced among rural counties.