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79 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 471 (2004)
Legal Analysis of Economics: Solving the Problem of Rational Commitment

handle is hein.journals/chknt79 and id is 489 raw text is: LEGAL ANALYSIS OF ECONOMICS: SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF RATIONAL COMMITMENT BRUCE CHAPMAN* I. LAW AND ECONOMICS AS A MORE EQUAL PARTNERSHIP Lawyers and economists meet under either of two banners that signal their joint movement. One of these is law and economics; the other is economic analysis of law.' While the two labels are used more or less interchangeably, there is an important difference in em- phasis between them. Law and economics suggests the possibility of a more equal partnership; we can imagine that either term in the pair might have gone first, and we are none the wiser, on observing a par- ticular order in the terms, as to what role either law or economics plays in the partnership. But economic analysis of law is a good deal less ambiguous. It suggests something that has largely been true about the interchange between law and economics, namely, that eco- nomics provides the method of analysis and law the subject matter to which this analysis is applied.2 Of course, in one sense that this is the truth of the matter about law and economics should not be surprising. Over the last four dec- ades we have become used to economics being characterized less by a distinctive subject matter and more by its particular analytical ap- proach to social behavior. The time has long past when economics * Faculty of Law, University of Toronto. I am grateful to Shachar Lifshitz, Joe Mintoff, Oren Perez, and, particularly, Wlodek Rabinowicz and Horacio Spector for very helpful com- ments on an earlier version of the arguments that appear in this paper. The comments of the various participants in the Special Workshop on Law and Economics and Legal Scholarship, 21st IVR World Congress, Lund, Sweden (August 12-18, 2003), as well as those in the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Law and Economics Association in Toronto (September 2003) are also gratefully acknowledged. Funding for the research on this paper was provided by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 1. The names of the different introductory texts in the area illustrate this point. Compare RICHARD A. POSNER, ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF LAW (6th ed. 2003), with A. MITCHELL POLINSKY, AN INTRODUC7ION TO LAW AND ECONOMICS (2d ed. 1989), and ROBERT COOTER & THOMAS ULEN, LAW AND ECONOMICS (3d ed. 2000). 2. See Richard A. Posner, Law and Economics in Common Law and Civil Law Nations, 7 ASS'NS: J. LEGAL & SOC. THEORY 77, 77 (2003) (characterizing the banner law and econom- ics as misleading).

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