Behavioral Economics Commons^™

The Microfoundations Of Standard Form Contracts: Price Discrimination Vs. Behavioral Bias, Jonathan Klick

All Faculty Scholarship

Standard form contracts, or contracts of adhesion, appear to provide contradictory evidence for the operation of bargaining in the markets where they are common. Non-negotiated contract terms that seemingly benefit sellers to the detriment of buyers call into question the efficiency implications of the Coase Theorem, which forms the foundation of positive law and economics. Proponents of the behavioral school of law and economics have suggested that behavioral biases, observed in experimental contexts, provide the most plausible explanation for standard form contracts. However, price discrimination might provide a more parsimonious explanation for abusive terms in contracts. If there is heterogeneity …

Assessing The State Of Black America In Terms Of Black Buying Power From 1990 To Present, Samina J. Mcgill

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Denying Human Homogeneity: Eugenics & Making Of Post-Classical Economics, Sandra J. Peart, David M. Levy

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

The question we propose to address is how did economics move from the classical period characterized by the hardest possible doctrine of initial human homogeneity—all the observed differences among people arise from incentives, luck, and history¹—to become comfortable with accounts of human behavior which alleged foundational differences among and within races of people? (Darity 1995) In this paper, we shall argue that early British eugenics thinkers racialized economics in the post-classical period.²

Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, And Justice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into …

In Defence Of Exploitation, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

The concept of exploitation is thought to be central to Marx's Critique of capitalism. John Roemer, an analytical (then-) Marxist economist now at Yale, attacked this idea in a series of papers and books in the 1970s-1990s, arguing that Marxists should be concerned with inequality rather than exploitation -- with distribution rather than production, precisely the opposite of what Marx urged in The Critique of the Gotha Progam.

This paper expounds and criticizes Roemer's objections and his alternative inequality based theory of exploitation, while accepting some of his criticisms. It may be viewed as a companion paper to my What's …

"A Nation Of Thieves": Securing Black People's Right To Shop And To Sell In White America, Regina Austin

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

"An Honest Living": Street Vendors, Municipal Regulation, And The Black Public Sphere, Regina Austin

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Functional Explanation And Metaphysical Individualism, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A number of (present or former) analytical Marxists, such as Jon Elster, have argued that functional explanation has almost no place in the social sciences. (Although the discussion is framed in terms of a debate among analytical Marxists, the point is quite general, and Marxism is used for illustrative purposes.) Functional explanation accounts for what is to be explained by reference to its function; thus, sighted organism have eyes because eyes enable them to see. Elster and other critics of functional explanation argue that this pattern of explanation is inconsistent with "methodological individualism," the idea, as they understand it, that …