MEMORANDUM

TO: Economics and the Law students
FROM: Avery Katz
DATE: February 4, 1994
RE: Grades

Here are the final grades for the course. Because there was great variation in the issues you chose to address in your essays, there is no model answer. On the second question, many approaches to an answer were possible, and my scoring was based on the answer's coherence, sophistication, use of evidence, and mastery of concepts from the course. On the first question (on the Garrettson case), I applied the same criteria, but also had in mind a particular set of issues that needed to be discussed. They included:

(1) Were there any externalities involved in the case?

(2) Does the law in this case promote precautions by the relevant parties? What might those precautions be?

(3) Does the law in this case promote efficient risk allocation?

(4) If not all incentives are efficient, what rule of law makes the best compromise among efficiency considerations?

(5) Are there problems of imperfect information or irrationality that would affect your views on which rule of law is most efficient?

(6) Are there important distributional considerations that would affect your views on the proper rule of law? Is there an efficiency-equity trade-off at work here?

I have made copies of the top student answers to each question, and they will soon be on reserve at the library. Your exams, along with the top answers, are available for inspection at the office of Mary Richards, 906 LR.

AK