Tuesday and Thursday, 1:00 to 2:20 Room 204 Toldo

INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Michael F. Charette
Office: Room G131, Chrysler Hall North
Telephone: 253-4232 Ext. 2380
E-mail mfc@uwindsor.ca (please identify yourself as
a student registered in 41-331)

All e-mail communication between faculty and students must use UWIN e-mail addresses.

OFFICE HOURS: Tuesday and Thursday, 9:00 am – 10:00 am
and 11:30 am – 12:30 pm, or by appointment.

TEXTBOOK: Purchase is optional Cooter, Robert and Thomas Ulen, Law and Economics 4th edition, Addison Wesley, New
York, 2004. A copy of the text will be on reserve in the library and relevant material will be posted on the course
website.

The textbook has a related web site (www.cooter-ulen.com).

PREREQUISITES: 41-221 Intermediate Microeconomics

COURSE OBJECTIVES: This course is intended to introduce you to the role of economic theory in the analysis of criminal law and and legal procedure. The course will begin with a discussion of some possible objectives of a system of laws. The effectiveness of alternative legal rules and sanctions will be assessed.

BASIS FOR
COURSE GRADE: Mid term test 50% of final grade (October 30th revised date – in class).
If you do not write the mid-term test you must provide a written explanation with relevant supporting documents. No make-up mid-term tests will be given. If you do not write the mid-term for an approved reason the final exam will represent 100% of your final grade.
Final Exam 50% of final grade (Slot 6, Tuesday, December 16 at 1:30 pm) The format for final exams written other than during the assigned exam slot may differ. If you do not write the final exam during the assigned slot then you must follow the application procedure indicated in Senate By-Law 51 in order to be considered for admission to a make-up final exam which will be written on February 18th 2009 (a date set by the Department of Economics).

Letter grade equivalents in this course:
A+ 93-100 B+ 77-79.9 C+ 67-69.9 D+ 57-59.9
A 86-92.9 B 73-76.9 C 63-66.9 D 53-56.9 F 35-49.9
A- 80-85.9 B- 70-72.9 C- 60-62.9 D- 50-52.9 F- 0-34.9

Numerical scores on a given test may be adjusted upwards or downwards if overall class results are anomalous.

PLAGIARISM AND ACADEMIC DISHONESTY: Plagiarism and academic dishonesty will
not be tolerated and all instances will be reported to the Associate Dean of Science for disciplinary action under Senate Bylaw 31. Students must not have access to any form of electronic communication device, or calculator with more than minimal storage memory, during any testing procedure in this course.

DROPPING COURSES: The last date for withdrawing from this course, without a grade being assigned, is November 7th.

STUDENT EVALUATIONS: The Student Evaluation of Teaching will be carried out during the last two weeks of scheduled classes.

TOPICS:

The lecture notes can be viewed by down loading Adobe's Acrobat Reader or as a WordPerfect document. The WordPerfect documents should be 'saved to file' for subsequent opening.

The lecture overhead slides can be viewed by down loading Power Point Viewer.

NOTE: The following Lecture Overheads and Lecture Notes are provided for your convenience. They are revised each year as the course is presented and may be revised during the current course offering.

A. Introduction
Lecture Overheads

Lecture notes: Part A-I

Readings: Chapters 1 to 3 of Cooter and Ulen

INTERESTING WEBSITE The following is an interesting website - www.canlii.org. It provides direct access to Federal and Provincial Statutes and Regulations (enacted law) and Court decisions (application of enacted law and common law). This is the type of material that law students would need to study.

B. The Economic Theory of Crime and Punishment

Lecture Overheads


Lecture notes: Part C-I click on or
Readings: Chapters 11 to 12 of Cooter and Ulen

The following are some readings (statistical overviews) of very aspects of crime and the criminal justice system in Canada.

Justice Spending Policing Expenditure Homicide


US - Canada Comparison Crime Statistics



Do not spend too much time on the the following readings. They are intended to give you a sense of how some theories of criminal behaviour are tested with real world data.

1. Application of the rational model of crime to cheating. This a fairly straight forward empirical test. Do not get hung up on the statistical techniques. Focus on the question of interest and what types of factors affect the likelihood that a student will cheat?

2. This is a bit more complicated (at least the variable definitions). Just take a quick look at how the authors approach the problem.

3. Some of the economics of capital punishment:
Becker is a premier economic theorist of the 'Chicago School'

Posner is also a 'Chicago School' type who is an U.S. Court of Appeal judge who started his live as an Economist
Johnes provides some comments on Becker's view



C. An Economic Theory of the Legal Process

Lecture Overheads:

Lecture notes: Part D-I click on or

Readings: Chapter 10 of Cooter and Ulen


- additional readings to be assigned







Return to HOMEPAGE

Comments and suggestions welcomed
E-mail: mfc@uwindsor.ca

Last update: December 28, 2008