IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/revpoe/v16y2004i4p507-515.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Preaching to the choir: A response to Kaplow and Shavell's Fairness Versus Welfare

Author

Listed:
  • Mark White

Abstract

This note is a critical response to Louis Kaplow and Steven Shavell's recent treatise on law and economics, Fairness Versus Welfare, in which they argue that legal decision-making should be conducted with the sole goal of welfare-maximization. After a brief summary of the book, this paper focuses on three primary problems with its contents and approach. First, the tautological nature of the authors' argument, which they acknowledge but downplay is discussed. Second, it is argued that while the authors give lip-service to 'tastes for fairness,' they refuse to acknowledge the implications of such preferences for their conclusions and then minimize their possible importance. Finally, this paper addresses what is possibly the most disappointing aspect of this work: the arrogance, condescension, and intolerance displayed throughout the book toward those with dissenting views.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark White, 2004. "Preaching to the choir: A response to Kaplow and Shavell's Fairness Versus Welfare," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 507-515.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:16:y:2004:i:4:p:507-515
    DOI: 10.1080/revpoe0953825042000271720
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/revpoe0953825042000271720
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/revpoe0953825042000271720?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Louis Kaplow & Steven Shavell, 2003. "Fairness versus Welfare: Notes on the Pareto Principle, Preferences, and Distributive Justice," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 331-362, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mark White, 2006. "A Kantian critique of neoclassical law and economics," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(2), pages 235-252.
    2. Mark D. White, 2018. "The neglected nuance of Beccaria’s theory of punishment," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 315-329, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antonides, Gerrit & Kroft, Maaike, 2005. "Fairness judgments in household decision making," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 902-913, December.
    2. Olivia D'Aoust & Olivier Sterck, 2016. "Who Benefits from Customary Justice? Rent-seeking, Bribery and Criminality in sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 25(3), pages 439-467.
    3. Sergey Belozyorov & Zhanna Pisarenko, 2015. "Pension Reforms in Countries with Developed and Transitional Economies," Economy of region, Centre for Economic Security, Institute of Economics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, vol. 1(4), pages 158-169.
    4. Mongin, Philippe, 2019. "Interview of Peter J. Hammond," CRETA Online Discussion Paper Series 50, Centre for Research in Economic Theory and its Applications CRETA.
    5. Manuel Couret Branco, 2006. "The Right to Work and the Political Economy of Human Rights," Economics Working Papers 08_2006, University of Évora, Department of Economics (Portugal).
    6. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:4:y:2007:i:14:p:1-10 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Safarzyńska, Karolina, 2013. "Evolutionary-economic policies for sustainable consumption," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 187-195.
    8. Noemi Florea, 2020. "The Public’s Guide to Climate Change Mitigation: Contemporary Crises," Proceedings of the 17th International RAIS Conference, June 1-2, 2020 028nf, Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies.
    9. Krecke, Elisabeth, 2003. "Economic analysis and legal pragmatism," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 421-437, December.
    10. Rossi, Enrico, 2020. "Reconsidering the dual nature of property rights: personal property and capital in the law and economics of property rights," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 105840, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Aaron Nicholas & Birendra Rai, 2019. "Are Efficient Bargaining Power Disparities Unfair? An Experimental Test," Monash Economics Working Papers 02-19, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    12. Manuel Couret Branco, 2007. "Economics Against Human Rights," Economics Working Papers 02_2007, University of Évora, Department of Economics (Portugal).
    13. Yi Li, 2019. "Apportioning indivisible damage and strategic diffusion of pollution abatement technology," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 126(1), pages 19-42, January.
    14. Jeffrey Wagner & Luiz Freitas, 2007. "Capturing moral economic context," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(14), pages 1-10.
    15. Mikolaj Rylski, 2021. "On Fairness and Moral Force of the Employment Contract in the Post-Industrial Era," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(1), pages 461-477.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:16:y:2004:i:4:p:507-515. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CRPE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.