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79 Geo. L.J. 1447 (1990-1991)
Status and Incentive Aspects of Judicial Decisions

handle is hein.journals/glj79 and id is 1465 raw text is: Status and Incentive Aspects of Judicial Decisions JEFFREY EVANS STAKE* INTRODUCTION ................................................... 1449 I. STATUS AND INCENTIVE EFFECTS ........................... 1450 A. THE BASIC DISTINCTION ................................. 1450 B. TWO DIFFERENT COMPONENTS OF EFFICIENCY ........... 1452 1. A Pound of Flesh and Other Penalty Clauses ........ 1452 2. Debtor's Prison and Other Criminal Laws ........... 1453 3. The Rule Against Perpetuities ....................... 1454 4. Servitudes After the Neighborhood Changes ......... 1456 C. TWO PROBLEMS IN ASSESSING STATUS EFFICIENCY ....... 1458 D. OTHER TERMINOLOGY AND DISTINCTIONS ............... 1459 E. EFFICIENCIES DIFFICULT TO CLASSIFY ................... 1461 II. NORMATIVE IMPLICATIONS ................................. 1462 III. STATUS EFFECTS IN LEGAL RESEARCH ...................... 1463 A. ATTENTION TO INCENTIVES IN THE NEW LAW & ECONOMICS SCHOLARSHIP ............................... 1463 B. THE FREQUENT EXCLUSION OF UNCLEAR LAW FROM POSITIVE EFFICIENCY ANALYSIS ......................... 1466 C. A POSITIVE APPLICATION OF ECONOMICS TO CASES INVOLVING UNCLEAR LAW .............................. 1468 1. Examples of Positive Hypotheses Based Upon Status Effects .............................................. 1469 2. Comparing Status-Oriented Approaches .............. 1471 D. CASES FOR WHICH STATUS EFFICIENCIES MIGHT PROVE A USEFUL TOOL ........................................... 1473 1. Property Rules and Liability Rules .................. 1473 2. The Degree to Which the Decisionmaker Is Constrained by the Law ............................. 1475 3. The Degree to Which Incentives Are Important ...... 1475 4. Interpersonal Utility as a Predictive Factor .......... 1476 IV. THEORIES OF EFFICIENCY OF THE COMMON LAW ........... 1477 A. JUDGES APPLY THEIR LEARNED VALUES, WHICH INCLUDE EFFICIENCY ............................................. 1478 * Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington. I thank Judge Richard Posner, Professors Richard Epstein, Thomas Ulen, Ken Dau-Schmidt, Lewis Kornhauser, Louis De Alessi, Kevin Brown, Patrick Baude, William Popkin, Craig Bradley, Lynne Henderson, Roger Dworkin, Alex Tanford, and Don Gjerdingen, and participants at the Georgetown Univer- sity Law Center Law and Economics Workshop for very helpful comments. I gratefully acknowl- edge research support provided by Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington. 1447

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