Public Policy analysis and argument is an essential part of the lawyer's job, whether in private or government practice or in other capacities. This class is designed to give students a vocabulary and toolkit that will enable them to better evaluate laws, legal decisions, and regulations, lend persuasiveness to their arguments about public policy, and,perhaps most important, interact not only with other lawyers, but with officials, experts, and professionals in other fields who are accustomed to public policy analysis. Through relevant readings, mixed with case studies, we will cover such tools and topics as behavioral economics, the legislative process, public choice, cost-benefit analysis, decision making under conditions of uncertainty, the importance of agenda setting, comparative institutional analysis, rent-seeking, and democratic experimentalism.
