Special Workshop Abstract

How useful is economic analysis of law in legal research and teaching? To shed light on this question, the use of welfare-economic considerations to evaluate and explain legal decision-making is discussed. After an introduction of the basic ideas and concepts with some illustrations from the “law and economics”-literature, it will be focused on the Scandinavian law of negligence and the issues of strict liability and the concept of compensable harm. The exposition shows that important tort doctrines have been discussed in light of an economic approach for more than a century and that this method can work also as a modern form of pedagogy. In addition, the discussion indicates both that the legal-dogmatic tradition supports the use of welfare considerations resembling that of the economic approach, and that legal-dogmatic research borrowing ideas, concepts and models from economics is still likely  be fruitful.