Equilibrium

A stable outcome in which actors have no reason, given their preferences, constraints, and expectations, to change their chosen behavior.

Why It Matters

Equilibrium reasoning helps legal analysis predict how parties, firms, litigants, regulators, and offenders respond once a rule changes incentives.

A short list of directly relevant archive entries.

1960

Introductory

Ronald H. Coase

Journal of Law and Economics

2016

Advanced

Robert Cooter and Thomas Ulen

Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository

2019

Advanced

A. Mitchell Polinsky

Wolters Kluwer

1707

Foundations of Law and Economics

11 East 574, 103 Eng. Rep. 1127 (K.B. 1707)

Property protection, malicious interference, and incentives to make productive use of land.

1805

Foundations of Law and Economics

3 Cai. R. 175 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1805)

First possession, capture rules, and the administrability of property rights in wild animals.

1854

Foundations of Law and Economics

9 Exch. 341, 156 Eng. Rep. 145 (1854)

Foreseeability, information disclosure, and limits on consequential damages for breach of contract.

1879

Foundations of Law and Economics

11 Ch. D. 852 (1879)

Nuisance, coming to the nuisance, and reciprocal conflicts over incompatible land uses.