Abstract

Law-and-economics has an ex-middle problem. First, there is the problem of preserving law’s deterrent power, and its ability to influence later behavior, even when it is sensible to renegotiate incentives later on. The issue is hardly limited to contract renegotiation, and the ubiquity of this kind of ex-middle thinking is examined here. Second, there is the idea that the more our thinking is driven by an ex-ante perspective, the more it distances itself from common ethical intuitions that tend to involve ex-post observations, or simply results. Solving ex-middle problems by tinkering with incentives leads to increased objections from ethically oriented audiences, who find efficiency claims unattractive when they burden individuals in the interest of future unidentifiable beneficiaries. This conflict makes it hard for law-and-economics to have its deserved influence on lawmaking. When law renegotiates with positive incentives, it reduces its ex-ante impact; when it relies on negative incentives, either ex-post or ex-middle, accompanied by a readjustment of the optimal ex-ante rule, it runs the risk of offending ethical sentiments, and then it rarely takes hold. One aim here is to draw attention to ex-middle recalibrations, and the second aim is to suggest that a law-and-economics approach is most successful when it devises efficient rules that are not at odds with ethical sentiments.

中文翻译：

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法律与经济的前中间问题

摘要

法经济学是一个中间问题。首先，存在一个问题，即即使以后有必要重新协商激励措施，也要维护法律的威慑力及其影响以后行为的能力。问题不仅仅限于合同重新谈判，这里还讨论了这种前中间思想的普遍性。其次，有一种观点认为，我们的思维越受事前观点的驱使，它与越倾向于涉及事后观察或简单地得出结果的常见道德直觉之间的距离就越远。通过修补激励措施来解决中间问题，会导致来自以道德为导向的受众提出的反对意见越来越多，他们发现效率要求在为未来无法确定的受益人带来负担的情况下给个人带来负担时就没有吸引力。这种冲突使法律和经济学很难对立法产生应有的影响。当法律以积极的激励手段进行重新谈判时，它将减少事前的影响；当它依靠事前或事后的消极激励措施，并伴随着对事前最优规则的重新调整时，它冒着冒犯道德情感的风险，因此很少被抓住。这里的一个目标是引起人们对中间修正的关注，第二个目标是表明，法律和经济方法设计出与道德观念不矛盾的有效规则时，是最成功的。它冒着冒犯道德观念的风险，因此很少被抓住。这里的一个目标是引起人们对中间修正的关注，第二个目标是表明，法律和经济方法设计出与道德观念不矛盾的有效规则时，是最成功的。它冒着冒犯道德观念的风险，因此很少被抓住。这里的一个目标是引起人们对中间修正的关注，第二个目标是表明，法律和经济方法设计出与道德观念不矛盾的有效规则时，是最成功的。