Objectives:
A participant who has successfully completed this unit should:

• have a sound understanding of basic economic methodology and the meaning of concepts such as efficiency, justice, rights, legal rules and institutions and the relationships between them;
• be able to appreciate the economic consequences and role of law and legal institutions;
• be able to analyse specific legal policy issues of interest to them from a law and economics perspective.

Content
The first part of the course introduces students to the economic approach covering important basic economic concepts and theories (including efficiency, notions of social benefit and cost, the Coase Theorum, Median Voter Theory, and Agency Theory). The second part of the course applies these theories to the analysis of rules and legal institutions. Topics in the second half could include

• Property, Contract and Tort Law and Economics (applying the Coase Theorum and extensions)
• Economic Analysis of Disputes, Litigation, Court and Tribunal Decision Making (including the economic analysis of the efficiency of the common law)
• Economic Analysis of Government - Constitutional and Administrative Law and economics (including public choice theory of Parliamentary Government and agency theory of Executive Government)
• The economics of Corporations law ( including transactions costs analysis of the role of Corporate Personality, Limited Liability, and Directors Duties)
• The Economics of Competition Law ( and its relationship to Intellectual Property)
• Economics and the Criminal Justice System,
• The use of economic evidence in court, and Government decision making the role of theory, econometrics, statistical and financial analysis.

Students must rely on the Approved Assessment which will be posted to the course homepage on the ANU Law website, prior to the commencement of the course.

26 Contact Hours (Intensive Delivery)

Introduction to Legal Reasoning and Research (non-lawyers)