I'm happy to announce my newly published book, "Law and Economics: Private and Public" (West Academic 2018, with Todd Zywicki and Tom Miceli).
Here is a brief description from publisher's website:
"This accessible volume integrates wide-ranging economic methodologies with a vast array of legal subjects. Coverage includes the first-year law school curriculum along with institutions and doctrines comprising the core foundation of upper level legal study. Dedicated chapters introduce neoclassical economics, interest group theory, social choice, and game theory, and the book intersperses alternative methodological insights. The analysis synthesizes these methodologies with modern and classic case law, other legal materials, and policy discussions inspired by current events. Ideal for a law school seminar or capstone course, this unique volume is also perfectly suited for business school courses on legal methods and public policy. Professors will find a rich array of materials adaptable to varying pedagogical styles and substantive areas of emphasis. Students exploring these materials will emerge with a deeper understanding of law and economics and a greater appreciation of our lawmaking institutions."
The following blurbs that appear on the book's back cover:
“Stearns, Zywicki, and Miceli have written a fantastic book that has the potential to remake the field of law and economics. For the first time, one volume embraces the whole range of law and economics methodologies, including not only neoclassical economic analysis, but also game theory, public choice, and social choice, along with insights drawn from Austrian and behavioral economics, while also providing rich contemporary applications in both private and public law. With luck this book will reach students who are not immediately attracted to Chicago School microeconomics.”
– Michael E. DeBow, Steven Everett Wells Professor of Municipal Law, Cumberland School of Law
“This great volume, written by three extremely accomplished scholars in the field, covers an amazing amount of material. The coverage is comprehensive, accurate, and of high quality. One fascinating advantage of this book is that it takes the student from theory to case law – that is, from theory to application based on real cases. This book is extremely well suited to students taking a law school elective in Law and Economics, as well as to students in a related undergraduate program or in business school.”
– Keith N. Hylton, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, Boston University School of Law
“Stearns, Zywicki, and Miceli provide an incredibly broad-ranging and easily accessible journey through the economic concepts (broadly defined) that provide insight into virtually all legal subjects. This book serves as a primary text for multiple courses and as a supplemental text to several others. Within these covers is a veritable treasure trove of useful insights to legal policy questions, from eminent domain to gun control, comparative negligence, bank bailouts, offender registries, class action rules, line-item vetoes, choice of law, and literally hundreds more. You will wish to spend years inside!”
– Erin O’Hara O’Connor, Dean and McKenzie Professor of Law, Florida State University College of Law
The book also contains a wonderful Foreword by Professor Tom Ulen, Swanlund Chair Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
For readers who might be curious, here is my explanation of the cover art from the Preface (p.xvi):
The Cover Art
"During the summer of 2016, while in Scotland, my family and I visited the National Gallery of Art in Edinburgh. For the first time, I saw The Gallery of Cornelis van der Geest, painted by the Flemish artist, Willem van Haecht, in 1628. Having been raised in a home that was in many respects a museum (see Chapter 14, part III), I was immediately drawn to the painting, which I later learned depicted the private collection of a spice merchant from Antwerp. Upon reading Erin O’Hara O’Connor’s wonderful description of the book as “a veritable treasure trove,” I knew that the painting should grace the cover. I hope that like the gallery visitors the artist depicts, our readers will explore the world of ideas within these chapters, in groups or alone, but always with the excitement of seeing something new."
For more information, here is a link to the West Academic webpage. The book is available on Amazon.
I welcome your comments.