Providing students with a solid grounding in the economic analysis of the law, this reader brings together edited versions of diverse and challenging journal articles into a unified collection.

Chosen to provoke thought and discussion, these carefully streamlined articles apply economic theories to many aspects of the law, from intellectual property, corporate finance, and contracts to property rights, family law, and criminal law.

• Provides real-life examples and implications of economic theory.
• Creates a unified vision of the law, showing the interconnections between the various fields.
• Covers a broad range of topics, from intellectual property and corporate finance to family and criminal law.
• Encourages intuitive understanding and applications of the economic principles, due to reduced mathematical content.

Donald A. Wittman is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His articles have been published in top legal, economic, and political science journals, and he has published two books, The Myth of Democratic Failure (1995) and The Federalist Papers: The New Institutionalism and the Old (co-edited with B. Grofman, 1989).