lucernaforum goes BIG
The Research Hub for Behavioural Economics in Governance (BIG) combines research competencies in the field of behavioural economic analysis and its application to the law. By using an analytical approach that is as close to reality as possible, the steering effects of legal regulations are examined in particular.
As a current field of application, the BIG Research Hub focuses on the possibilities and limitations of the behavioural economic analysis of competition law.
Research Impact
A „More Realistic Approach“?
While in Europe, the influence of the „More Economic Approach“ has been intensively debated over the last 20 years, a new behavioural economic approach to competition has emerged in the USA in the form of „Behavioral Antitrust“. This approach assumes only rational, strong-willed and self-interested market actors in the analysis of competition law. The behavioural economic analysis of competition law can be seen as the basis for yet another new approach to competition: „the More Realistic Approach“. This approach aims to free competition policy as much as possible from unrealistic, theoretical assumptions and to underpin it with empirically corroborated facts: competition policy should be oriented towards the real behaviour and real objectives of market actors, and thus base competition law analysis on more realistic models. Martin Meier explores the fundamental question of where the possibilities and limitations of the behavioural economic analysis of competition lie.
Integrating Seminar „Law and Economics: Behavioural Economics and Law“ (SS 21)
Today, we face a multitude of environmental problems such as pollution, endangered biodiversity and climate change. Both law and economics can contribute to solving these problems. The most suitable approach is an interdisciplinary perspective in which legal and economic analyses are linked in a problem-oriented manner.
In detail, the following topics, among others, are to be explored in depth in written papers and then discussed in plenary sessions, taking into account economic and legal considerations.
Integrating Seminar „Law and Economics: Behavioural Economics and Law“
Law and Economics
The economic analysis of the law and similar fields of research - summarised as „Law and Economics“ – have a very high status in legal education in the USA. For some time now, these methods have been received in Europe. This lecture will therefore give students the opportunity to get to know this new discipline.
In the economic analysis of the law, the consequences of legal regulations are determined on the one hand (positive element) and evaluated on the other hand from the point of view of efficiency (normative element). After the most important analytical methods and concepts have been taught, applications from the various areas of law (private law, criminal law and public law) are discussed. Finally, the possibilities, as well as the limits of economic legal analysis, are discussed. Hereby, the philosophical foundations of the economic approach to law, as well as its compatibility with the Swiss legal system, are critically examined.
