![Jefferson Meets Coase: Land-Use Torts, Law and Economics, And Natural Property Rights.](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
![Jefferson Meets Coase: Land-Use Torts, Law and Economics, And Natural Property Rights.](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
![](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
![](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
Jefferson Meets Coase: Land-Use Torts, Law and Economics, And Natural Property Rights.
Notre Dame Law Review 2010, June, 85, 4
-
- $5.99
-
- $5.99
Publisher Description
This Article questions how well standard economic analysis justifies the land-use torts that Ronald Coase popularized in The Problem of Social Cost. The Article compares standard economic analyses of these torts against an interpretation that follows from the natural-rights morality that informed the content of these torts in their formative years. The "Jeffersonian" natural-rights morality predicts the contours of tort doctrine more determinately and accurately than "Coasian" economic analysis. The comparison teaches at least three important lessons. First, a significant swath of doctrine, Jeffersonian natural-rights morality explains and justifies important tort doctrine quite determinately. Second, this natural-rights morality complements corrective justice theory by the substantive rights that tort's corrective-justice features seek to rectify when wronged. Finally, standard economic tort analysis cannot prescribe determinate results without making simplifying assumptions more characteristic of moral philosophy than of social science.