Eric Posner
Kirkland and Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law
Department: School of Law
Colleges / Universities: University of Chicago
Contact
1111 E. 60th St., Room 420
Chicago, IL 60637
Email: eposner@uchicago.edu
Website: University of Chicago faculty profile
Blog: Eric Posner's website
Eric Posner is Kirkland and Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law, University of Chicago. His books include Law and Social Norms (Harvard 2000); Chicago Lectures in Law and Economics (Foundation 2000, editor); Cost-Benefit Analysis: Legal, Economic, and Philosophical Perspectives (University of Chicago 2001, editor, with Matthew Adler); The Limits of International Law (Oxford 2005, with Jack Goldsmith); New Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis (Harvard forthcoming 2006, with Matthew Adler); and Terror in the Balance: Security, Liberty, and the Courts (Oxford 2007, with Adrian Vermeule).
He is also an editor of the Journal of Legal Studies. He has published articles on bankruptcy law, contract law, international law, cost-benefit analysis, constitutional law, and administrative law, and has taught courses on international law, foreign relations law, contracts, employment law, bankruptcy law, secured transactions, and game theory and the law.
His current research focuses on international law, immigration law, and foreign relations law. He is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School.
Degrees
J.D. Harvard Law School, 1991
M.A. Philosophy, Yale University, 1988
B.A. Yale University, 1988
Recent Academic Article Summaries
The Institutional Structure of Immigration Law
Immigration law affects the behavior of migrants and employers. Immigration benefits Americans by providing skilled and unskilled labor. Failure to respect migrants’ rights can discourage migrants. Government delegates the screening of migrants to employers, families, and the states.
Skilled laborers can be screened at the time of entry. Illegal immigration provides unskilled labor.
Terror In the Balance: Security, Liberty and the Courts
This book considers how government should act in emergencies.
The President and executive branch are better judges than courts of what actions are appropriate in a crisis such as a terrorist attack.
New Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis
This book looks at how regulators use economic theory to assess new rules.
Administrative agencies should use cost-benefit analysis to decide whether rules tend to make people better off, roughly speaking.
Holding Internet Service Providers Accountable
This article looks at who should pay for illegal use of computers.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should be held responsible for some illegal uses of their networks, including copyright piracy, defamation, and computer security breaches.
Should Coercive Interrogation Be Legal?
This paper looks at what methods police should use to interrogate suspects.
It makes sense to regulate coercive interrogation, but not to ban it.
Blog Posts
Quotes in the News
Posner, E. (2021, June 22). The Washington Post.“The significance of the ruling goes far beyond the unique setting of college sports. The decision hints at a revival of antitrust law and its application to an area of the economy antitrust law has unjustly neglected — the labor market.”
Eric Posner
Kirkland and Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law
School of Law
University of Chicago
Posner, E. (2015, April 16). Slate.“One question is whether the managers of institutional firms are directing the managers of the firms they own not to compete over price. If so, this is a violation of the antitrust laws, and the Department of Justice should investigate.”
Eric Posner
Kirkland and Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law
School of Law
University of Chicago
Posner, E. (2014, January 14). Wired.“If you’re a merchant or a business and you buy and sell stuff, you need to know how much you’re getting in return.”
Eric Posner
Kirkland and Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law
School of Law
University of Chicago
Posner, E. (2013, December 19). National Public Radio’s Marketplace.“If you think of [Bitcoin] as just a very useful mechanism for transferring value from one place to another, then regulation will not undermine that goal. It will actually improve that by making the use of Bitcoins more secure, protecting people from some of the illegal or undesireable uses of Bitcoin -- for example, to finance criminal activity or to buy drugs.”
Eric Posner
Kirkland and Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law
School of Law
University of Chicago
Posner, E. (2013, December 3). New Republic.“To cut through the confusion, one needs to see that there are two different theories as to how bitcoins work—a wrong theory which is driving the excitement, and a banal theory which may leave a marginal place for bitcoin in the financial system.”
Eric Posner
Kirkland and Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law
School of Law
University of Chicago
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