In the Beginning: The Endowment Effect in Behavioral Economics and Behavioral Law and Economics

摘要

Early on, law and economics had a central point of contact with behavioral economics. The point of contact was the foundational debate over the Coase theorem and the "endowment effect" — the tendency of people to refuse to give up entitlements they hold even though they would not have bought those entitlements initially (Thaler, 1980, pp. 43-47). This early point of contact between law and economics and behavioral economics helped to develop a rich literature on the varying importance of the endowment effect across different contexts.