Title

Efficiency and Labor Law

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1993

ISSN

0029-3571

Publisher

Northwestern University School of Law

Language

en-US

Abstract

The law and economics literature, particularly that part of the literature that offers positive theories of the law, has largely ignored labor law. There are two reasons for this. One is that unions are seen as economically inefficient - in the sense that society would be wealthier without them - because cartel behavior is generally viewed by economists as inefficient. The same arguments supporting the per se rule against price fixing lead economists and economically oriented lawyers to shy away from labor law as a field of study, because they take it as given that the union is an inefficient institution. The second reason labor law has not received much attention in the law and economics literature, particularly from positive theorists, is that it is seen as an area of statutory law. A large part of the law and economics literature makes a distinction between statutory and case law, arguing that the latter tends toward efficiency while the former is more often than not the product of rent-seeking efforts on the part of special interest groups.

Comments

Reprinted in Foundations of Labor and Employment Law 163, S. Estreicher & S. J. Schwab, eds., Foundation Press (2000).

This document is currently not available here.

Link to Publisher Site (BU Community Subscription)

Share

COinS