Judges play a central role in the American legal system, but their behavior as decision-makers is not well understood, even among themselves. The system permits judges to be quite secretive (and most of them are), so indirect methods are required to make sense of their behavior. Here, a political scientist, an economist, and a judge work together to construct a unified theory of judicial decision-making. Using statistical methods to test hypotheses, they dispel the mystery of how judicial decisions in district courts, circuit courts, and the Supreme Court are made.

The authors derive their hypotheses from a labor-market model, which allows them to consider judges as they would any other economic actors: as self-interested individuals motivated by both the pecuniary and non-pecuniary aspects of their work. In the authors' view, this model describes judicial behavior better than either the traditional “legalist” theory, which sees judges as automatons who mechanically apply the law to the facts, or the current dominant theory in political science, which exaggerates the ideological component in judicial behavior. Ideology does figure into decision-making at all levels of the federal judiciary, the authors find, but its influence is not uniform. It diminishes as one moves down the judicial hierarchy from the Supreme Court to the courts of appeals to the district courts. As The Behavior of Federal Judges demonstrates, the good news is that ideology does not extinguish the influence of other components in judicial decision-making. Federal judges are not just robots or politicians in robes.

La complicazione dei sistemi giuridici contemporanei sembra la risposta ineluttabile alla complessità delle relazioni sociali odierne. Ma l'intricato groviglio di regole, tessuto per far funzionare la nostra società, ha finito invece per ingessarla fino a renderla un vero e proprio campo minato. In questo lavoro Epstein propone una ricetta di semplificazione estrema nella sua linearità e convincente nella sua audacia: non c'è altro modo di regolare un mondo complesso se non adottando veramente poche regole semplici. Esse si contano sul palmo di una mano: autonomia, proprietà, libertà contrattuale, stato di necessità e risarcimento del danno contrattuale o extracontrattuale. L'autore esamina queste regole attraverso l'analisi di una ricca casistica giurisprudenziale che ha fatto scuola nel mondo.

As far back as the Magna Carta in 1215, the right of private property was seen as a bulwark of the individual against the arbitrary power of the state. Indeed, common-law tradition holds that "property is the guardian of every other right." And yet, for most of the last seventy years, property rights had few staunch supporters in America.
This latest addition to Oxford's Inalienable Rights series provides a succinct, pointed look at property rights in America--how they came to be, how they have evolved, and why they should once again be a mainstay of the law. Richard A. Epstein, the nation's preeminent authority on the subject, examines all aspects of private property--from real estate to air rights to intellectual property. He takes the reader from the strongly protective property rights advocated by the framers of the Constitution through to the weak property rights supported by Progressive and liberal politicians of the twentieth century and finally to our own time, which has seen a renewed appreciation of property rights in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's landmark Kelo v. New London decision in 2005. The author's own powerful defense of property rights threads through the narrative. Using both political theory and economic analysis, Epstein argues that above all that private property is a sound social institution, and not just an excuse for selfishness and greed. Only a system of private property lets people form and raise families, organize religious and other charitable organizations, and earn a living through honest labor.
Supreme Neglect offers a compact, incisive look at this hotly contested constitutional right, championing property rights as an essential social institution.

In this provocative book, Richard Epstein shows how Progressives saw in constitutional interpretation an opportunity to advance their political agenda. They transformed a Constitution that reflected the influence of John Lock and James Madison into one that reflected the ideas of the leading intellectuals of their own time. As a result, they rewrote, because they did not understand, key provisions of the constitutional text.

II Novecento è stato senza dubbio il grande secolo della rivoluzione medica, durante il quale sono stati prodotti farmaci davvero miracolosi. Tuttavia pare adesso che il progresso si sia arrestato e gli unici nuovi farmaci che vengono prodotti servono solo ad alleviare sintomi. L'autore di questo volume sostiene che il frutto di questo rallentamento del progresso medico sia dovuto in buona sostanza a una regolamentazione eccessiva che tutela i brevetti e prezzi finendo così per danneggiare il consumatore a totale vantaggio delle multinazionali del settore.

During the Progressive Era, argues Epstein (law, U. of Chicago), a sustained legal attack was unleashed against the classical liberal interpretation of the US Constitution, undermining limitations on the ability of the federal government to regulate the economy as well as the liberty of individuals to enter into voluntary contracts. This progressive direction for constitutional interpretation has had numerous negative effects on American law and policy continuing on to the present day, as he seeks to demonstrate through a generally chronological narrative--from the classical liberal consensus to the present--of Supreme Court decisions on economic questions and their impacts. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

In this volume, leading experts explore routes to a new and better institutional design for global antitrust in the national and international contexts.

In introducing five papers on post-residential services for disturbed children and adolescents, Epstein (Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, U. of Chicago), addresses the difficulties of transition planning for limited community options. Zimmerman, the school's director, discusses social- and life-skills training. Other contributors describe specific programs. Co-published as Residential treatment for children and youth , v.20, no.2, 2002. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Too many laws, too many lawyers--that's the necessary consequence of a complex society, or so conventional wisdom has it. Countless pundits insist that any call for legal simplification smacks of nostalgia, sentimentality, or naiveté. But the conventional view, the noted legal scholar Richard Epstein tells us, has it exactly backward. The richer texture of modern society allows for more individual freedom and choice. And it allows us to organize a comprehensive legal order capable of meeting the technological and social challenges of today on the basis of just six core principles. In this book, Epstein demonstrates how.

The first four rules, which regulate human interactions in ordinary social life, concern the autonomy of the individual, property, contract, and tort. Taken together these rules establish and protect consistent entitlements over all resources, both human and natural. These rules are backstopped by two more rules that permit forced exchanges on payment of just compensation when private or public necessity so dictates. Epstein then uses these six building blocks to clarify many intractable problems in the modern legal landscape. His discussion of employment contracts explains the hidden virtues of contracts at will and exposes the crippling weaknesses of laws regarding collective bargaining, unjust dismissal, employer discrimination, and comparable worth. And his analysis shows how laws governing liability for products and professional services, corporate transactions, and environmental protection have generated unnecessary social strife and economic dislocation by violating these basic principles.

Simple Rules for a Complex World offers a sophisticated agenda for comprehensive social reform that undoes much of the mischief of the modern regulatory state. At a time when most Americans have come to distrust and fear government at all levels, Epstein shows how a consistent application of economic and political theory allows us to steer a middle path between too much and too little.