Economic Efficiency in Law and Economics (New Horizons in Law and Economics Series)

In this text Zerbe introduces a way to think about the concept of economic efficiency that is both consistent with its historical derivation and more useful than contemporary concepts. He establishes an expanded version of Kaldor-Hicks efficiency as an axiomatic system that performs the tasks of: allowing an expanded range for efficiency analysis; and estabilshing the conditions under which economists can reasonably say that some state of the world is inefficient. He then applies the analysis to a number of hard and interesting cases, including the economics of duelling, cannibalism and rape. He develops a theory of common law efficiency and indicates the circumstances under which a common law will be inefficient.