This book provides an accessible introduction to the emerging field of behavioral public choice economics and the law. This field studies how public officials, lawmakers, and judges fall prey to their own biases and heuristics, and how constitutions and judicial doctrines can be structured to mitigate these cognitive shortcomings. Written lucidly in plain language, this book is invaluable to all students, scholars, and general readers interested in behavioral economics, law and economics, and political economy.

This book provides an accessible introduction to the emerging field of behavioral public choice economics and the law. This field studies how public officials, lawmakers, and judges fall prey to their own biases and heuristics, and how constitutions and judicial doctrines can be structured to mitigate these cognitive shortcomings. Written lucidly in plain language, this book is invaluable to all students, scholars, and general readers interested in behavioral economics, law and economics, and political economy.

Public choice is the study of behavior at the intersection of economics and political science. Since the pioneering work of Duncan Black in the 1940s, public choice has developed a rich literature, drawing from such related perspectives as history, philosophy, law, and sociology, to analyze political decision making (by citizen-voters, elected officials, bureaucratic administrators, lobbyists, and other "rational" actors) in social and economic context, with an emphasis on identifying differences between individual goals and collective outcomes. Constitutional political economy provides important insights into the relationship between effective constitutions and the behavior of ordinary political markets. In Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy, Charles Rowley and Friedrich Schneider have assembled an international array of leading authors to present a comprehensive and accessible overview of the field and its applications. Covering a wide array of topics, including regulation and antitrust, taxation, trade liberalization, political corruption, interest group behavior, dictatorship, and environmental issues, and featuring biographies of the founding fathers of the field, this volume will be essential reading for scholars and students, policymakers, economists, sociologists, and non-specialist readers interested in the dynamics of political economy.

Analyzes law with reference to new findings in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics.

Argues that public finance--the study of the government's role in economics--should incorporate principles from behavior economics and other branches of psychology.

Economic analysis of law: an overview -- Behavioral studies -- An overview of behavioral law and economics -- Normative implications -- Behavioral insights and basic features of the law -- Property law -- Contract law -- Consumer contracts -- Tort law -- Commercial law -- Administrative, constitutional, and international law -- Criminal law and enforcement -- Tax law and redistribution -- Litigants' behavior -- Judicial decision-making -- Evidence law

Behavioral economics has potential to offer novel solutions to some of today's most pressing public health problems: How do we persuade people to eat healthy and lose weight? How can health professionals communicate health risks in a way that is heeded? How can food labeling be modified to inform healthy food choices? Behavioral Economics and Public Health is the first book to apply the groundbreaking insights of behavioral economics to the persisting problems of health behaviors and behavior change. In addition to providing a primer on the behavioral economics principles that are most relevant to public health, this book offers details on how these principles can be employed to mitigating the world's greatest health threats, including obesity, smoking, risky sexual behavior, and excessive drinking. With contributions from an international team of scholars from psychology, economics, marketing, public health, and medicine, this book is a trailblazing new approach to the most difficult and important problems of our time.