Title
A Missing Markets Theory of Tort Law
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1996
ISSN
0029-3571
Publisher
Northwestern University School of Law
Language
en-US
Abstract
This Article provides a framework for reconciling the tension between tort doctrine and economic theory, and for addressing the general failure of economically oriented theories to come to grips with doctrine at a detailed level. My claim is that tort doctrine should be viewed as a response to the incompleteness of markets, or more generally the problem of missing markets. Because of market incompleteness, some of the benefits as well as costs associated with activities will be shifted or "externalized" to third parties. Tort doctrine reflects sensitivity to the externalization of benefits and costs. It can therefore be understood only by examining both types of externalization.
Recommended Citation
Keith Hylton,
A Missing Markets Theory of Tort Law
,
in
90
Northwestern University Law Review
977
(1996).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/2215