Law and Economics Workshop (Speaker: Steven Shavell)

LAW & ECONOMCS WORKSHOP SERIES

presents

Professor Steven Shavell
Harvard Law School

 A Fundamental Enforcement Cost Advantage of the
Negligence Rule over Regulation

Tuesday, March 12, 2013
4:10 – 6:00
Solarium (room FA2) – Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park

Regulation and the negligence rule are both designed to obtain compliance with desired standards of behavior, but they differ in a primary respect: compliance with regulation is ordinarily assessed independently of the occurrence of harm, whereas compliance with the negligence rule is evaluated only if harm occurs. It is shown in a stylized model that because the use of the negligence rule is triggered by harm, the rule enjoys an intrinsic enforcement cost advantage over regulation. Moreover, this advantage suggests that the examination of behavior under the negligence rule should tend to be more detailed than under regulation (as it is).

Steven Shavell graduated from the University of Michigan in 1968, served in the U.S. Public Health Service from 1968 to 1970, obtained a PhD in economics from MIT in 1973, joined the faculty of the Department of Economics at Harvard University in 1974, and moved to the faculty of Harvard Law School in 1980.

For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.