17.05.-21.05.	Introduction to Law, Economics and Business	Prof. Robert D. Cooter University of California, Boalt Hall School of Law
07.06.-11.06.	Introduction to Empirical Legal Studies	Prof. Kathy Zeiler Georgetown University Law Center

In formulating strategy, a business must often use law to achieve its purposes. For example, a business must use law to create, acquire, sell, restructure, or dissolve a company. Besides facilitating business, law also constrains it.  For example, a business must avoid fraud, comply with regulations, and compensate victims of accidents. This class applies economic analysis to the foundations of the laws that facilitate and constrain business activity. The class begins with the law of property and contracts, which are the foundations of business law, and then moves to other legal topics. Readings on finance and corporation especially focus on business activity in developing countries. The class draws heavily on non-technical microeconomics, which provides one of the major theoretical perspectives on the study of law in American universities.

 

This course is designed to introduce students to the techniques scholars use to produce empirical legal studies. The first two days will focus on the basics of frequentist statistics and econometrics, with a focus on how to read, interpret and critique empirical studies. On days three and four we will practice applying the basics by reading, interpreting and critiquing a number of empirical legal studies. The final day will offer an introduction to Bayesian empirical approaches. After covering the basics of Bayesian statistics and how this branch of statistics differences from the frequentist approach, we will discuss whether legal empiricists should go Bayesian.

Prof. Robert D. Cooter was educated at Swarthmore College, Oxford University, and Harvard University. After receiving his Ph.D. in economics in 1975, he joined the economics faculty at Berkeley. In 1980 he joined Berkeley's law faculty, where he is currently the Herman F. Selvin Professor. Bob regularly teaches the economic analysis of law, and he has taught a variety of courses jointly with lawyers, including contracts, torts, corporations, financial services, the theory of adjudication, and law and anthropology. Bob has received various awards and fellowships, including Institute for Advanced Study, National Science Foundation, Guggenheim, Max Planck, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Humboldt Research Prize. He was a founding director of the American Law and Economics Association and its President in 1994-1995. He co-founded the Berkeley Electronic Press (BEPress) in 1999. He received an honorary doctorate from Hamburg University in 2002. He co-founded the Latin American and Caribbean Law and Economics Association (ALACDE), and he served as its president in 2005. Besides numerous articles, he is co-author of Law and Economics (5th edition, 2008, with Tom Ulen) and author of The Strategic Constitution (Princeton, 2000).

 

Prof. Kathy Zeiler is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. She teaches Torts and Economic Analysis of Health Care Law, and co-directs the Georgetown Law & Economics Workshop. Her research focuses on health care law and economics, medical malpractice liability and insurance, disclosure regulation, experimental economics and behavioral law and economics. Before joining the faculty in 2003, she received a Ph.D. in Economics from the California Institute of Technology and a J.D. from the University of Southern California. She has been a visiting professor at NYU and Harvard Law Schools and is a member of the board of directors of the American Law and Economics Association.

The following pdf-files contain information on the program fee as well as the application procedure and the admissions process.

• Administrative information
• Application form

Susanne Senn
Administrative Manager Doctoral Program

Phone: +41 31 780 31 03

Fax:     +41 31 780 31 00

 

Studienzentrum Gerzensee, Dorfstr. 2, CH-3115 Gerzensee, Switzerland