The John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics

About the Program

The John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at the University of Virginia School of Law supports faculty and student interests and research relating to the economic analysis of legal issues. The program stimulates discussions and debate through conferences, workshops and lectures. It encourages student research through colloquia.

The John M. Olin Foundation Inc. was established in 1953 by John Merrill Olin (1892-1982) — inventor, industrialist, conservationist and philanthropist. Olin was committed to the preservation of the principles of political and economic liberty as they have been expressed in American thought, institutions and practice.

Present Bias and Debt-Financed Durable Goods

Andrew Hayashi

Oren Bar-Gill

The Duty of Creditors to Cooperate in Sovereign Debt Workouts

G. Mitu Gulati

Lee C. Buchheit

Lenders are perfectly free to decide for themselves whether, when, how, to whom and on what terms they will extend credit to a sovereign borrower. But...

Cause, Effect, and the Structure of the Social World

Megan T. Stevenson

This Essay is built around a central empirical claim: that most reforms and interventions in the criminal legal space are shown to have little lasting...

Political Corruption

Michael D. Gilbert

Deborah Hellman

This chapter studies political corruption and its many relationships to the law of democracy. It begins with bribery laws, which forbid officials from...

Contractual Howlers: A Russian Bond Case Study

G. Mitu Gulati

Robert Scott

Stephen Choi

Both theorists and courts commonly assume that high-dollar financial contracts between sophisticated parties are free of linguistic errors...

Does Cash Bail Deter Misconduct?

Megan T. Stevenson

Aurelie Ouss

Courts routinely use low cash bail as a financial incentive to ensure that released defendants appear in court and abstain from crime. This can create...

Faculty Director

Jason S. Johnston

Blaine T. Phillips Distinguished Professor in Environmental Law

Nicholas E. Chimicles Research Professor of Business Law and Regulation

Director, John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics

Resident Faculty

Jason S. Johnston

Law and economics, environmental liability

Ph.D. in economics, University of Michigan
Clerked for Gilbert S. Merritt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Has served on the Board of Directors of the American Law and Economics Association, on the National Science Foundation’s Law and Social Science grant review panel, and on the Board of the Searle Civil Justice Institute
Former director of the Program on Law, Environment and Economy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School
Johnston currently working on a book that critically analyzes the foundations of global warming law and policy.

Quinn Curtis

Corporations, securities and real estate law; consumer financial markets

Ph.D. in economics, Yale University
Prior to law school, worked as a software engineer for Microsoft
Recent scholarship focuses on how law can help reform 401(k) plans (Faculty Q&A)

Paul G. Mahoney

Corporations, securities regulation, contracts

Former Dean of the Law School (2008-16)
Clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and for Judge Ralph K. Winter, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Worked on legal reform projects in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Nepal

George M. Cohen

Contracts and professional responsibility

Ph.D. in economics, University of Pennsylvania
Clerked for Judge Walter K. Stapleton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
A member of the American Law and Economics Association who has served as an ethics consultant and expert for several law firms (Faculty Q&A)
Co-authored the books "The Law and Ethics of Lawyering" and "Foundations of the Law and Ethics of Lawyering"

Megan T. Stevenson

Criminal law and criminal procedure

Economist and criminal justice scholar focused on criminal justice reform, including bail, algorithmic risk assessment, misdemeanors and juvenile justice
Research on bail cited extensively in a landmark federal civil rights decision, O’Donnell v. Harris, and in the media
Holds a Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Berkeley

Joshua Fischman

Law and economics, quantitative methods/statistics in the law

Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
His research interests include law and economics, empirical methods, judicial decision-making and criminal sentencing

Andrew Hayashi

Tax law and policy, behavioral economics

Ph.D. in economics from University of California, Berkeley; M.Sc. in economics and philosophy from the London School of Economics
Hayashi's research on "tax salience" — meaning how visible a tax is — showed a correlation between higher salience and a higher number of appeals of property tax assessments
Serves as a McDonald Distinguished Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University

Rich Hynes

Bankruptcy and consumer finance law

Ph.D. in economics, University of Pennsylvania
Practiced law with Skadden Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Los Angeles
Hynes focuses on parallel systems outside of bankruptcy that handle debtor-creditor relations, including the use of state courts to collect debts. (Scholarship Profile)

Dotan Oliar

Intellectual property, law and economics

Clerked for the Israeli Supreme Court after earning his law degree at Tel Aviv University
Served as a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Olin Center for Law and Economics
Has presented in several fora, including the Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum; the annual meetings of the American, Canadian and European law and economics associations; and the intellectual property scholars conference. (Story)

Michael D. Gilbert

Legislation, election law, law and economics, and direct democracy

Ph.D., Jurisprudence and Social Policy, University of California, Berkeley
Scholarship applies economic analysis to election law and constitutional design
Clerked for Judge William A. Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
The first law professor to receive the UVA Student Council Distinguished Teaching Award

Kevin Cope

Law and economics, international relations, international law, immigration and refugee law, judging

Ph.D. candidate in political science, University of Michigan (expected 2019)
Created the first judicial ideology measure covering every Article III judge in the federal judiciary
Currently working to develop a method that could help international treaty negotiators achieve global-welfare-increasing cooperation
Clerked for three federal judges, including Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and practiced government enforcement litigation law in Washington, D.C., with Skadden, Arps

Michal Barzuza

Corporate law and corporate finance

Received the John M. Olin Prize for outstanding S.J.D. dissertation in law and economics at Harvard Law School
Her article, "Market Segmentation: The Rise of Nevada as a Liability-Free Jurisdiction," was named among the 10 best corporate and securities law articles published in 2012, in an annual poll of corporate law professors conducted by Corporate Practice Commentator (Story)
Scholarship integrates law and finance (Scholarship Profile). Her article "What Happens in Nevada? Self-Selecting into Lax Law," was published in the Review of Financial Studies.

Michael A. Livermore

Environmental law and climate change, administrative law

Clerked for Judge Harry T. Edwards on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Founding executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law
Co-authored "Retaking Rationality: How Cost-Benefit Analysis Can Better Protect the Environment and Our Health." The book became the foundation for a new approach public interest organizations could take in arguing for policies to protect the environment. (Faculty Q&A on related scholarship)

Gregory Mitchell

Civil litigation; law and psychology

Ph.D. in psychology, University of California, Berkeley
Scholarship focuses on legal judgment and decision-making, the psychology of justice and the application of social science to legal theory and policy (Faculty Q&A)
Mitchell's background in social psychology informs his work, which explores how human reactions to legal rules vary across individuals and are influenced by context. (Scholarship Profile)

Workshops

The workshop program invites law and economics scholars from our own faculty and from other schools to deliver working drafts of their papers to the faculty and a small group of students at Virginia. Faculty and students attending are encouraged to read the paper prior to each workshop, which will be held in the Faculty Lounge on Tuesdays from 11:30 a.m.-12:50 p.m., unless otherwise indicated. After brief introductory remarks by the workshop guests, questions and discussion will follow for the remainder of the session. Lunch will be provided.

Full UVA Law Specialty Workshop Schedule

Spring 2023

Feb. 7
Nuno Garoupa (George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School)

Feb. 21
Prasad Krishnamurthy (University of California, Berkeley, School of Law)

March 14
Holger Spamann (Harvard Law School)

March 28
Jill E. Fisch (University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School)

April 11
Jacob Goldin (University of Chicago Law School)

April 25
Paige Marta Skiba (Vanderbilt University Law School)

Fall 2022

Sept. 13
Doron Teichman (Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Law)

Sept. 27

Adriana Robertson (University of Chicago Law School)

Oct. 18

Sepehr Shahshahani (Fordham University School of Law)

Nov. 1

Adi Leibovitch (Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Law)

Nov. 22

Florencia Marotta-Wurgler (New York University School of Law)

Dec. 6

Abhay Aneja (University of California, Berkeley, School of Law)

Spring 2022

Feb. 8
Maya Sen (Harvard)

Feb. 22
Yonathan Arbel (University of Alabama School of Law)

March 15
Philip Cook (Duke)

March 29
Jens Frankenreiter (Washington University in St. Louis School of Law)

April 12
Charles Crabtree (Dartmouth College) — Caplin Pavilion

April 26
Jonah Gelbach (UC Berkeley School of Law)

Fall 2021

Sept. 14
Adam Chilton (University of Chicago Law)

Sept. 28
Amalia R. Miller (UVA) and Melissa K. Spencer (University of Richmond)

Oct. 19
Ben Grunwald (Duke Law)

Nov. 2
Oren Bar-Gill (Harvard Law School)

Nov. 16
Weijia Rao (Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University)

Nov. 30
Zachary Liscow (Yale Law School)

Spring 2021

Online Via Zoom, 12:30 p.m.- 1:40 p.m.

Feb. 2
Catherine Tucker (MIT)

Feb. 16
Michael Simkovic (USC Gould School of Law) and Eric Allen (University of California, Riverside)

March 2
Netta Barak-Corren (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

March 23
Bocar Ba (UC Irvine)

April 6
Crystal Yang (Harvard Law)

April 20
Shayak Sarkar (UC Davis)

April 27
Katerina Linos (Berkeley)

Fall 2020

Online Via Zoom, 12:30 p.m.- 1:40 p.m.

Sept. 15
Michael Frakes (Duke Law)

Sept. 29
Elliott Ash (ETH Zurich)

Oct. 20
Jeremy McClane (Illinois College of Law)

Oct. 27
Caroline Cecot (Antonin Scalia Law School, Geoge Mason University)

Nov. 10
Melissa Wasserman (University of Texas at Austin School of Law)

Nov. 24
Jennifer Doleac (Texas A&M University)

Spring 2020

Jan. 21
David Hyman (Georgetown)

Feb. 11
Tatiana Homonoff (NYU Wagner)

Feb. 25
Tamar Kricheli-Katz (Tel Aviv)

March 24
Rachel Potter (UVA)

April 7
Jordan Neyland (GMU)

Fall 2019

Sept. 17
Ashley Langer (Arizona)

Sept. 24
Lewis Kornhauser (NYU)

Oct. 29
Yair Listokin (Yale)

Nov. 12
Rory VanLoo (Boston)

Nov. 19
Cindy Alexander (SEC)

Spring 2019

Feb. 12
Jonah Gelbach (Penn)

Feb. 26
Ken Ayotte (UC Berkeley)

March 26
Claudia Landeo (Alberta)

April 9
Anne Piehl (Rutgers)

April 23
Anne Meng (UVA)

Fall 2018

Sept. 25
Keith Hylton (Boston University)

Oct. 16
Lara Buchak (UC Berkeley)

Oct. 30
Daniel Sokol (Florida)

Nov. 13
Jens Frankenreiter (Max Planck Institute)

Nov. 27
Abby Wood (USC)

Spring 2018

Feb. 13
Paige Skiba (Vanderbilt)

Feb. 27
Anne Piehl (Rutgers)

March 20
Alison Morantz (Stanford)

April 3
Jake Gersen (Harvard)

April 10
Damon Jones (Chicago)

April 17
Bert Huang (Columbia)

Fall 2017

Sept. 12
Yehonatan Givati (Hebrew)

Sept. 26
Andrea Chandrasekhe (UC Davis)

Oct. 24
Jon Elster (Columbia)

Oct. 31
Gary Libecap (UCSB)

Nov. 7
Georg Vanberg (Duke)

Nov. 28
Mitchell Polinsky (Stanford)

Academic Conferences

The John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics conducts an academic conference each year that strives to push economic analysis beyond its traditional subject areas in law and broaden the appeal of the conference to other disciplines.

Law and Economics of Consumer Credit

Friday and Saturday, March 26-27, 2010
Contact: Joyce Holt
Full Schedule

Just two decades ago, little data existed even on the most rudimentary aspects of the criminal process, such as the numbers and types of convictions each year. In our fragmented criminal system, no central data gathering was conducted between the thousands of independent federal, state and local jurisdictions. Criminal justice data collection is still far from what should be desired. However, increasingly useful data is collected concerning each stage of the criminal process ranging from initial police stops, interrogations, guilty pleas, convictions, sentencing decisions, post-conviction review, to subsequent exonerations. A new wave of legal scholarship constructs new data sets and conducts more refined and ambitious empirical analysis. Criminal law scholarship also increasingly examines from a theoretical perspective the complex incentives surrounding criminality, prosecutorial charging, conviction, and sentencing.

The 2010 Olin Conference at the University of Virginia School of Law examines this growing and productive intersection of law and economics and criminal law. Scholars from economics, law, and criminology will examine different aspects of the criminal process. Papers analyze problems ranging from litigation costs, sentencing accuracy, racial profiling, deterrence, wrongful convictions, and judicial behavior. Participants will discuss the presented papers and more generally will explore what can be learned from the latest theoretical and empirical work analyzing criminal law from a law and economics perspective.

Law and Economics of Consumer Credit Law

Friday and Saturday, April 17-18, 2009
Contact: Joyce Holt
Full Schedule

After 50 years of legal and regulatory efforts to promote equality of opportunity in workplaces, one might expect social scientists to have reached consensus on what measures work to combat employment discrimination. But no such consensus exists. Social scientists offer many opinions on equal employment opportunity “best practices,” but surprisingly little evidence supports many of these opinions.

The key to advancing knowledge about how to combat workplace discrimination effectively is to determine which of the many competing assertions about the incidence, causes, and cures of workplace discrimination are supported by sound evidence. The 2009 Olin Conference at the University of Virginia will bring together leading scholars from economics, law, political science, psychology, sociology, and statistics to synthesize what we know about what works and what does not work in combating workplace discrimination and to discuss how we can most effectively learn what works and then communicate this information to organizations, courts, and policymakers.

Law and Economics of Consumer Credit

Friday and Saturday, February, 22-23, 2008
Contact: Joyce Holt
Full Schedule

Dramatic and controversial changes have occurred in both consumer lending markets and the laws that regulate these markets. This conference brings together scholars in the fields of law, economics, and finance to discuss some of the pressing issues that have emerged from the recent changes with an aim to better evaluate various legislative proposals that have been proposed in response. Papers cover a range of topics from payday lending to subprime mortgage to consumer bankruptcy.

Law and Finance

Friday and Saturday, March 23-24, 2007
Contact: Joyce Holt
Full Schedule

Recent advances in economic theory, as well as a growing body of empirical evidence, have highlighted the strong connections between the fields of law and finance. Today's financial economists rely heavily on the characteristics of legal institutions and contracts to explain the behavior of corporations and markets, while today's scholars in law and economics draw on financial theories and data to critically examine the organization and structure of law. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly common for law and finance scholars to work together in pursuing their research endeavors. This conference brings together top researchers in the fields of law and finance to discuss the topics that are of cutting-edge importance. The Conference is co-sponsored with the McIntire School of Commerce.

The Law and Economics of Organizations

Friday and Saturday, February 24-25, 2006
Contact: Joyce Holt
Full Schedule

Both legal and economic scholars have critically examined various aspects of modern organization since Coase's seminal article on the theory of the firm in 1937, including: an organization's economic and legal boundary, its hierarchical structure, incentive and promotion within an organization, and control within and across organizations. This conference aims to bring together scholars from the allied fields to examine the recent developments in the field and also to provide a more holistic view of the modern organization theory.

John M. Olin Conference on Real Options and the Law

Friday and Saturday, October 1-2, 2004
Contact: Joyce Holt
Full Schedule

Real options techniques are widely used in finance and economics to evaluate investment flexibility and to design multi-period strategies that maximize returns from flexibility. Legal scholars have begun to apply real options analysis to a range of legal contexts in which a party enjoys a discretionary right: for example, the right of an actor to commit a wrong (or breach a contract) and incur liability, the right of the innocent party to choose among remedies, the right to file a law suit and proceed through multi-staged litigation. This conference brings together scholars who have introduced options analysis to law in their prior writing, to examine a range of legal options.

John M. Olin Conference on Empirical Research in Corporate, Bankruptcy, and Securities Law

Friday and Saturday, February 27-28, 2004
Contact: Joyce Holt
Full Schedule

This conference assembles scholars from law school and business school faculties to discuss recent empirical work in the fields of corporate, bankruptcy, and securities law. This work is part of a broader trend towards empirical research in law and economics. The goal of the conference is to not only evaluate recent, notable findings, but also to promote greater dialogue between law and business faculties on topics of mutual interest and on empirical methodology. The papers covered a range of topics from insider trading and corporate governance in Southeast Asia to the governance structure of spinoffs.