University of Southern California
University of Southern California Law and Economics Working Paper Series
Feminism, Fairness, and Welfare: An Invitation to Feminist Law and Economics
Abstract
In recent years there has been a renewed effort to ground conventional law and economics methodology, with its exclusive focus on efficiency and income redistribution through the tax system, in modern welfare economics (Kaplow & Shavell 1994, 2001). This effort raises a challenge to the possibility of a feminist law and economics: Is it possible to be a good (welfare) economist and still maintain the ethical and political commitments necessary to address feminist concerns with, for example, rights, inequality, and caring labor? In this review, I argue that modern welfare economics, rather than supporting the ethical minimalism of conventional methodology advocated by Kaplow and Shavell, ratifies the need for an ethically and politically informed economic analysis. Feminists can, and should, use the tools of both positive and normative economics to analyze feminist issues in law.
Subject Area
Women
Recommended Citation
Gillian K. Hadfield,
"Feminism, Fairness, and Welfare: An Invitation to Feminist Law and Economics"
(January 2006).
University of Southern California.
University of Southern California Law and Economics Working Paper Series.
Working Paper 40.
http://law.bepress.com/usclwps/lewps/art40
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