Not sure whether he's exactly a leftist, but Richard Thaler has certainly done sterling work on "behaviarol finance" and battling the efficient markets hypothesis, and I seem to remember that he's also had the odd go at trying to get some slightly more sophisticated economic approaches into Law 'n' Economics. Check it out : http://www.law.uchicago.edu/Publications/Working/WkngPprs%2051-75/55.CRS.Be havioral.pdf
At the Chicago School website, it's also possible to read this gem by John Lott:
"The standard public goods argument for education assumes that a better educated populace is more likely to support democracy. This presupposes that either more educated people are inclined to make decisions for themselves or that education inherently instills the belief that democracy is desirable (Cohn, 1979, p. 206 and Solmon,1982, p. 8). These arguments largely depend on the level of marketable human capital, such as literacy and reasoning ability, and ignores the question of methods: subsidies versus public provision. Yet, politicians in more totalitarian countries should wish to avoid creating a more independent and critically reasoning constituency. Hence, the public good explanation would imply a consistent negative relationship between totalitarianism and expenditures on public schooling. I will provide evidence that this is not the relationship that we observe.. "
For those who want to know, Lott proves this by estimating the following equation:
CURRENT EDUCATIONAL EXPENDITURES PER CAPITA i = c + b 5 TOTALITARIANISM RATING i + b 6 REAL PER CAPITA GDP i + b 7 (GOVERMENT NET OF SCHOOL EXPENDITURES/GDP)I + b 8 (TOTALITARIANISM RATING*REAL PER CAPITA GDP)i + u 2i (2)
My guess is that L&E is popular among a certain kind of economist, because it's the last remaining part of the profession where you can run simple
OLS regressions and still be considered one hell of a statistical researcher.
dd
PS: tangentially to this, MP wrote not so long ago:
Similarly, it doesn't seem wrong to me for a citizen of an OECD country to feel the first world owes the third world a debt of atonement for ravages of colonialism both classical and neo.
Apropos of which, do any of you Law guys know what the current state of
play is on the reparations for slave trade front? Having spent a
good part of the first half of this year covering the World Jewish
Council / Deutsche Bank lawsuit, I'd be interested to know.
Please respond to lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com cc: (bcc: DANIEL DAVIES) bcc: DANIEL DAVIES Subject: Re: buying professors
A few progressives have followed Nathan's route to law school. Vic Garland of Sonoma State is one that comes to mind. But Law and Economics was first constructed at Chicago by Milton Friedman's brother in law to do just what it does.
I know of no leftist or even no liberal in its ranks, but then I am not an expert.
Doug Henwood wrote:
> Michael Perelman wrote:
>
> >Shouldn't your heading have been buying judges?
>
> Ooops. Yes, you're right.
>
> Is there any countervailing left "law & economics" analysis?
>
> Doug
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
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