Richard S. Markovits
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300114591
- eISBN:
- 9780300145229
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300114591.001.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, History of Economic Thought
Is economic efficiency a sound basis upon which to make public policy or legal decisions? This book considers the way in which scholars and public decision-makers define, predict, and assess the ...
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Is economic efficiency a sound basis upon which to make public policy or legal decisions? This book considers the way in which scholars and public decision-makers define, predict, and assess the moral and legal relevance of economic efficiency. The book begins by identifying imperfections in the traditional definition of economic efficiency. Further, the book develops and illustrates an appropriate response to Second-Best Theory and investigates the moral and legal relevance of economic-efficiency analyses. Not only do virtually all economic, legal, and public policy thinkers misdefine economic efficiency, but also the book concludes, that they ignore or respond inadequately to Second-Best Theory when analyzing the economic efficiency of public choices and mis-assess the relevance of economic-efficiency conclusions both for moral evaluations and for the answer to legal-rights questions that is correct as a matter of law.Less
Is economic efficiency a sound basis upon which to make public policy or legal decisions? This book considers the way in which scholars and public decision-makers define, predict, and assess the moral and legal relevance of economic efficiency. The book begins by identifying imperfections in the traditional definition of economic efficiency. Further, the book develops and illustrates an appropriate response to Second-Best Theory and investigates the moral and legal relevance of economic-efficiency analyses. Not only do virtually all economic, legal, and public policy thinkers misdefine economic efficiency, but also the book concludes, that they ignore or respond inadequately to Second-Best Theory when analyzing the economic efficiency of public choices and mis-assess the relevance of economic-efficiency conclusions both for moral evaluations and for the answer to legal-rights questions that is correct as a matter of law.
