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Positional goods and Robert Lee Hale's legal economics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2013

MASSIMILIANO VATIERO
MASSIMILIANO VATIERO*
Affiliation:
Institute of Law, University of Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland
*
*Email: vatierom@usi.ch
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Abstract

The legal realist Robert Lee Hale offered a definition of freedom as a zero-sum game: each volitional freedom implies some degree of coercion over other people's freedom, and at the same time one's freedom is subject to some degree of control and coercion by others. The objective of our work is to develop this idea along with the theory of positional goods. This allows us to illustrate the externalities deriving from the ‘consumption’ of freedom and detail the role of the lawmaker in accordance with the Halean contribution.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 351 - 362
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2013 

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