Download or read book The Consumer Welfare Hypothesis in Law and Economics written by Fabrizio Esposito and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2022-11-18 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Consumer Welfare Hypothesis in Law and Economics is a compelling account of market relations with firm roots in economic theory and legal practice. This incisive book challenges the mainstream view that allocative efficiency is about total welfare maximisation. Instead, it argues for the consumer welfare hypothesis, in which allocating resources efficiently means maximising consumer welfare, and demonstrates that legal structures such as antitrust and consumer law are in reality designed and practised with this goal in mind.
Download or read book The Consumer Welfare Standard Consumer Sovereignty and Reciprocity written by Fabrizio Esposito and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Consumer Welfare Hypothesis in Law and Economics claims that 1) in a partial equilibrium setting, a definition of allocative efficiency with remarkable pedigree uses a consumer welfare maximization standard; 2) this notion of allocative efficiency clearly fits better with EU antitrust and consumer law than the traditional total welfare hypothesis. The second claim is presented as a good reason for taking this notion of allocative efficiency in the economic approach to law seriously. This chapter shows that the consumer welfare hypothesis is supported by an indirect reciprocity mechanism with robust evolutionary credentials. Applied to a market setting, this indirect reciprocity mechanism is supported by the social norm of consumer sovereignty. Among other things, this account straightforwardly connects central themes of Adam Smith's thought: reciprocity, moral equality, division of labour, and consumer sovereignty. Consequently, another advantage of the consumer welfare hypothesis over the total welfare hypothesis is that it can rely on a plausible evolutionary mechanism.
Download or read book Law and Economics United in Diversity written by Fabrizio Esposito and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation proposes a form of collaboration between legal and economic research called Minimalist Law-and-Economics. This approach acknowledges the core commitments of both disciplines and promotes a division of labour based on their comparative advantages. While lawyers expect an analysis that is grounded in legal reasons and respectful of the fairness and wrongfulness theses, economists expect efficient market relations, analysed from an ex-ante perspective respectful of epistemological and normative minimalism. The proposed collaboration improves the lawyers’ understanding of market relations and thus enhances their ability to regulate them effectively. Conversely, economists can strengthen the empirical foundations of their research by considering legal reasons as evidence. This is attractive for value choices especially, since their justification is not central to economists’ expertise. To support Minimalist Law-and-Economics, this dissertation warrants three claims: 1) the economic claim holds that consumer welfare is a maximand used in market efficiency analysis in alternative to total welfare; 2) the translation claim holds that with consumer welfare rather than total welfare as the maximand, it is possible to offer a plausible economic account of fair market relations; and 3) the doctrinal claim holds that the efficiency hypothesis, which has consumer welfare as maximand, explains the reasons given in EU antitrust and consumer law better than the traditional efficiency hypothesis based on total welfare. The dissertation is divided into three parts. Part I clarifies the conditions for collaboration considered by Minimalist Law-and-Economics. Part II builds the theory that warrants the economic and translation claims. To do this, it gives an account of market relations that are compatible with the fairness and wrongfulness theses and the ex-ante perspective. Part III narrows the focus to EU antitrust and consumer law in order to warrant the doctrinal claim and to show how the analysis of legal reasons can be epistemologically and normatively minimalist. United in diversity, economic and legal research may well have a brighter future.
Download or read book What Can the Consumer Welfare Hypothesis Do for You At Least Three Things written by Fabrizio Esposito and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text was published as Weekend Edition of EU Law Live. It explains what the Consumer Welfare Hypothesis can do for legal scholars, especially (but not only) in the European Union:1 offer two new responses to arguments of this kind: from an economic point of view, this norm/institution/decision/policy is inefficient because it reduces total welfare (this second part might be implicit)2 the analysis supporting the hypothesis shows a different way to intertwine law and economics. If the one you have encountered in the past left you unimpressed or even irritated you, I understand; but still, try the Consumer Welfare Hypothesis. It is an entirely different thing!3 the Consumer Welfare Hypothesis opens a wealth of research questions waiting for an answer. You might well be the best person to answer one (or more) of them.
Download or read book Consumer Law and Economics written by Klaus Mathis and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-08-31 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume covers the challenges currently faced by consumer law in Europe and the United States, ranging from fundamental theoretical questions, such as what goals consumer law should pursue, to practical questions raised by disclosure requirements, the General Data Protection Regulation and technology advancements. With governments around the world enacting powerful new regulations concerning consumers, consumer law has become an important topic in the economic analysis of law. Intended to protect consumers, these regulations typically seek to do so by giving them tools to make better decisions, or by limiting the consequences of their bad decisions. Legal scholars are divided, however, regarding the efficacy and effects of these regulations; some call for certain policies to be abolished, while others support a regulatory expansion.
Download or read book Consumer Theories of Harm written by Paolo Siciliani and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-19 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has long been thought that fairness in European Consumer Law would be achieved by relying on information as a remedy and expecting the average consumer to keep businesses in check by voting with their feet. This monograph argues that the way consumer law operates today promises a lot but does not deliver enough. It struggles to avoid harm being caused to consumers and it struggles to repair the harm after the event. To achieve fairness, solutions need to be found elsewhere. Consumer Theories of Harm offers an alternative model to assess where and how consumer detriment may occur and solutions to prevent it. It shows that a more confident use of economic theory will allow practitioners to demonstrate how a poor standard of professional diligence lies at the heart of consumer harm. The book provides both theoretical and practical examples of how to combine existing law with economic theory to improve case outcomes. The book shows how public enforcers can move beyond the dominant transparency paradigm to an approach where firms have a positive duty to treat consumers fairly and shape their commercial offers in a way that prevents consumers from making mistakes. Over time, this 'fairness-by-design' approach will emerge as the only acceptable way to compete.
Download or read book Law and Economics of Justice written by Klaus Mathis and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Antitrust Paradox written by Robert Bork and published by . This book was released on 2021-02-22 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most important book on antitrust ever written. It shows how antitrust suits adversely affect the consumer by encouraging a costly form of protection for inefficient and uncompetitive small businesses.
Download or read book A Shocking Truth for Law and Economics written by Fabrizio Esposito and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This chapter challenges the use of total welfare as the axiological assumption adopted by economically-informed legal scholarship in the field of electricity. To do so, it departures from the assumption that the efficiency hypotheses can be grounded in two different economic rationales: the traditional one based on total welfare; and an alternative one based on consumer welfare. To challenge the uncritical endorsement of toral welfare, the chapter chooses the competition pillar for the EU internal market for electricity as a case study and shows that it is better explained assuming consumer welfare as its rationale. This proves that the economically-informed legal scholars are wrong in considering total welfare an unquestionable starting point for their research. This will likely be a 'shocking truth' for law and economics scholars. The argument is articulated in four steps. The first step builds the methodological foundations. It describes two types of explanatory claims, one external and the other internal to legal discourse, and discusses the superior relevance of the latter to legal practice. The second step lays the analytical framework. It identifies points of divergence between the two efficiency hypotheses, total and consumer welfare, with a focus on electricity markets. The third step reviews the economically-informed legal scholarship and the economic one on the regulation of electricity markets. It shows that scholars endorse total welfare, consumer welfare, and even both. The fourth and final step enters the realm of the EU internal market for electricity and proves that the economic rationale of legal materials and legal discourse is better explained by consumer welfare. This finding supports our alternative efficiency hypothesis based on consumer welfare.
Download or read book The Controversies of the Consumer Welfare Standard written by Kati Cseres and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This article deals with the consumer welfare standard in competition law enforcement. It explores the inherent economic and legal 'geography' of this notion by looking beyond the borderlines of competition rules. While the consumer welfare standard has been widely discussed as a legal and economic notion of competition law, this article approaches this concept from a new angle by making use of its interpretation in consumer law. In competition law the primary role of the consumer welfare standard is to verify the goals of competition policy and to delineate the general legal framework of competition law enforcement by establishing the basis for the standard of proof. In consumer law consumer welfare stands for correcting market failures in order to improve the consumer's position in market transactions. Consumer welfare is concerned with efficient transactions and cost-savings but it is also directed at social aspects of the market such as the safety and health of consumers. Consumer welfare is an economic concept with relevant socio-political and legal implications. However, the economic rationale seems to be often overridden by a political rationale, which is to legitimize the enforcement work of competition authorities' and to reflect society's preferences on income distribution. This article addresses the implications of the consumer welfare standard in welfare economics, political economy and law. The analysis points out to what extent the enforcement of competition law can prevent (final) consumer harm and make (final) consumers better off and what the inherent limits of the promotion of consumer interests are in competition law. Such comparisons clarify and identify the function of this standard and delineate the borderlines between the two disciplines, the possible gaps and unnecessary overlaps they create in regulating markets.
Download or read book The Antitrust Enterprise written by Herbert HOVENKAMP and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After thirty years, the debate over antitrust's ideology has quieted. Most now agree that the protection of consumer welfare should be the only goal of antitrust laws. Execution, however, is another matter. The rules of antitrust remain unfocused, insufficiently precise, and excessively complex. The problem of poorly designed rules is severe, because in the short run rules weigh much more heavily than principles. At bottom, antitrust is a defensible enterprise only if it can make the microeconomy work better, after accounting for the considerable costs of operating the system. The Antitrust Enterprise is the first authoritative and compact exposition of antitrust law since Robert Bork's classic The Antitrust Paradox was published more than thirty years ago. It confronts not only the problems of poorly designed, overly complex, and inconsistent antitrust rules but also the current disarray of antitrust's rule of reason, offering a coherent and workable set of solutions. The result is an antitrust policy that is faithful to the consumer welfare principle but that is also more readily manageable by the federal courts and other antitrust tribunals.
Download or read book Restoring Consumer Sovereignty written by Adrian Kuenzler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-18 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In today's highly concentrated marketplaces, social and cultural values--such as the lifestyle connotations that manufacturers and sellers confer upon their goods--often shape consumers' prior beliefs and attitudes and affect the weight given to new information by consumers who make purchasing decisions in the marketplace. Such consumer goods present the largely unexplored problem of contemporary market regulatory theory according to which an increased amount of product differentiation has rendered everyday purchasing decisions such as the choice between an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy Note as much a matter of personal identity rather than merely one of tangible product attributes. The basic challenge for market regulators and courts in such an environment is to make markets work effectively by providing a more efficient exchange of information about consumer preferences relating to tangible product features, functions, and quality. This book demonstrates that improved legal policy can assist consumers and increase market efficiency. It acknowledges that once particular beliefs held by consumers have become culturally or socially entrenched, they are very difficult to change. What is more, changing such beliefs is no longer simply a matter of educating people through the provision of additional information. Developing a novel framework through a detailed analysis of case law relating to consumer goods markets, this book delivers an accessible introduction to the law and economics of consumer decision-making, and a forceful critique of contemporary market regulatory policy.
Download or read book The Causes and Consequences of Antitrust written by Fred S. McChesney and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1995-03-15 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why has antitrust legislation not lived up to its promise of promoting free-market competition and protecting consumers? Assessing 100 years of antitrust policy in the United States, this book shows that while the antitrust laws claim to serve the public good, they are as vulnerable to the influence of special interest groups as are agricultural, welfare, or health care policies. Presenting classic studies and new empirical research, the authors explain how antitrust caters to self-serving business interests at the expense of the consumer. The contributors are Peter Asch, George Bittlingmayer, Donald J. Boudreaux, Malcolm B. Coate, Louis De Alessi, Thomas J. DiLorenzo, B. Epsen Eckbo, Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., Roger L. Faith, Richard S. Higgins, William E. Kovacic, Donald R. Leavens, William F. Long, Fred S. McChesney, Mike McDonald, Stephen Parker, Richard A. Posner, Paul H. Rubin, Richard Schramm, Joseph J. Seneca, William F. Shughart II, Jon Silverman, George J. Stigler, Robert D. Tollison, Charlie M. Weir, Peggy Wier, and Bruce Yandle.
Download or read book The Law and Economics of Enforcing European Consumer Law written by Dr Franziska Weber and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2014-05-28 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a comparative law and economics analysis of the changing landscape of EU consumer law enforcement policy now that EU member states are moving away from purely public or private law enforcement towards a more mixed approach. The book reflects on the need for efficient enforcement designs and examines the economic factors according to which the efficiency of different enforcement mechanisms can be assessed. A variety of hypothetical case scenarios are considered to illustrate various consumer law problems and the findings are used to assess real life situations in countries with different enforcement traditions.
Download or read book The Economics of Consumer Protection written by A. J. Duggan and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Welfare Competition written by Tibor Scitovsky and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dealing with general economic theory, other than employment theory, the book discusses the theory of pure and monopolistic competition - with a special emphasis upon welfare aspects. Beginning with an analysis of the consumer and of the individual firm, the main stress is nevertheless placed on the analysis of the economic system as a whole.
Download or read book Seduction by Contract written by Oren Bar-Gill and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-08-23 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consumers routinely enter into long-term contracts with providers of goods and services - from credit cards, mortgages, cell phones, insurance, TV, and internet services to household appliances, theatre and sports events, health clubs, magazine subscriptions, transportation, and more. Across these consumer markets certain design features of contracts are recurrent, and puzzling. Why do sellers design contracts to provide short-term benefits and impose long-term costs? Why are low introductory prices so common? Why are the contracts themselves so complex, with numerous fees and interest rates, tariffs and penalties? Seduction by Contract explains how consumer contracts emerge from the interaction between market forces and consumer psychology. Consumers are short-sighted and optimistic, so sellers compete to offer short-term benefits, while imposing long-term costs. Consumers are imperfectly rational, so sellers hide the true costs of products and services in complex contracts. Consumers are seduced by contracts that increase perceived benefits, without actually providing more benefits, and decrease perceived costs, without actually reducing the costs that consumers ultimately bear. Competition does not help this behavioural market failure. It may even exacerbate it. Sellers, operating in a competitive market, have no choice but to align contract design with the psychology of consumers. A high-road seller who offers what she knows to be the best contract will lose business to the low-road seller who offers what the consumer mistakenly believes to be the best contract. Put bluntly, competition forces sellers to exploit the biases and misperceptions of their customers. Seduction by Contract argues that better legal policy can help consumers and enhance market efficiency. Disclosure mandates provide a promising avenue for regulatory intervention. Simple, aggregate disclosures can help consumers make better choices. Comprehensive disclosures can facilitate the work of intermediaries, enabling them to better advise consumers. Effective disclosure would expose the seductive nature of consumer contracts and, as a result, reduce sellers' incentives to write inefficient contracts. Developing its explanation through a general framework and detailed case studies of three major consumer markets (credit cards, mortgages, and cell phones), Seduction by Contract is an accessible introduction to the law and economics of consumer contracts, and a powerful critique of current regulatory policy.
