ECON223

This course introduces the use of economic methods to examine laws and legal institutions. The fundamental concepts of economics-scarcity, maximization, and marginal analysis-are used to predict the effect of legal rules on behavior, and to evaluate how well a particular rule achieves its intended end. At another level, civil law may be viewed as another system of resource allocation and wealth distribution, as the legal system is often used to craft a remedy when markets fail in their allocative role. Topics may include property law, contract law, accident law, family law, criminal law, and copyright and trademark law. Prerequisite(s): ECON 101, 150, or 260.