Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law (Book Review‪)‬

Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law, by Steven Shavell, 2004, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 737 pages. Steven Shavell has contributed to the foundations of economic analysis of law in different manners. According to Posner (2006), he is a member of the third generation of economic analysts of law--Coase, Becker, and Calabresi being the first group, with Posner himself, Landes, and Ehrlich forming the second. Shavell has published several books and more than 100 articles on economics and on the economics of law. He has contributed to the principal-agent theory (Shavell, 1979b) and, more particularly, to the moral hazard literature (Shavell, 1979a). This book proposes an overview of the fields in the economics of law to which the author has contributed. It also covers in detail other fields and many contributions to the literature. The emphasis is on theory, but some empirical facts are mentioned.