Leo Katz on Why the Law is So Perverse

EconTalk

Library of Economics and Liberty

Economics, Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Education, Science, Books, Philosophy, History, Ethics, Courses, Business, Interviews

4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2016

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Leo Katz, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his book, Why the Law Is So Perverse. Katz argues that certain seemingly inexplicable features of the law are the result of conflicts between multiple objectives that the law or the courts must trade off against each other. Katz also argues that structure of the law and how it is enforced are analogous to certain inevitable ambiguities of collective choice and voting theory.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:09.3	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:13.8	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:18.9	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:21.7	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:26.1	back to 2006.
0:28.3	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:30.8	We'd love to hear from you.
0:34.6	Today is August 2nd, 2016, and my guest is Leo Katz, the Frank Carano Professor of Law.
0:41.2	At the University of Pennsylvania Law School, our topic for today is his book written in published
0:46.2	in 2011.
0:47.2	Why is the law so perverse, Leo, welcome to Econ Talk?
0:51.8	Thank you, the pleasure to be here.
0:54.7	Now this is a not really fascinating and challenging book.
0:57.8	It's full of logic puzzles, credible insights about law, collective choice, and I want
1:03.0	to warn parents that might be listening with young children we make it into some adult
1:06.4	topics.
1:07.4	We're going to start with some examples of what you mean by perverse, why the law is perverse.
1:12.8	And I want to start with the Kidney Club.
1:14.7	How would a Kidney Club work?
1:16.7	Yeah.
1:18.2	Some time ago, a philosopher had the idea, there's this shortage of kidneys, and people are
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Library of Economics and Liberty, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Library of Economics and Liberty and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.