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on Law and Economics |
| By: | Christine Jolls |
| Abstract: | Legal rules governing the employer-employee relationship are many and varied. Economic analysis has illuminated both the efficiency and the effects on employee welfare of such rules, as described in this paper. Topics addressed include workplace safety mandates, compensation systems for workplace injuries, privacy protection in the workplace, employee fringe benefits mandates, targeted mandates such as medical and family leave, wrongful discharge laws, unemployment insurance systems, minimum wage rules, and rules requiring that employees receive overtime pay. Both economic theory and empirical evidence are considered. |
| JEL: | J08 J18 J38 K00 K31 K32 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13230&r=law |
| By: | Jeffrey A. Miron; Elina Tetelbaum |
| Abstract: | The minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) is widely believed to save lives by reducing traffic fatalities among underage drivers. Further, the Federal Uniform Drinking Age Act, which pressured all states to adopt an MLDA of 21, is regarded as having contributed enormously to this life saving effect. This paper challenges both claims. State-level panel data for the past 30 years show that any nationwide impact of the MLDA is driven by states that increased their MLDA prior to any inducement from the federal government. Even in early adopting states, the impact of the MLDA did not persist much past the year of adoption. The MLDA appears to have only a minor impact on teen drinking. |
| JEL: | H11 K42 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13257&r=law |
| By: | Levy, Amnon (University of Wollongong) |
| Abstract: | A health-risking illegal personal service is transacted when the expected extra satisfaction rate exceeds the ratio of the expected extra cost to the legal service price. Its prevalence decreases with the costs of risk bearing for the providers and clients. Law-enforcement effort lowers (raises) the equilibrium price of the illegal and hazardous service when the ratio of the providersâÃÂàand the clientsâÃÂàdegrees of absolute risk aversion is greater (smaller) than the ratio of the law-enforcement elasticities of their cost bearing. |
| Keywords: | Unsafe service; Health risk; Legal risk; Law enforcement |
| JEL: | D4 D8 I1 K4 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uow:depec1:wp07-02&r=law |