Oren Bar-Gill | |
---|---|
Born | 1975 (age 48–49) |
Nationality | Israeli and American |
Occupation(s) | Lawyer, economist, academic, and author |
Awards | Young Scholar Medal, American Law Institute |
Academic background | |
Education | B.A., Economics LL.B. M.A., Law & Economics LL.M. (Master of Laws) Ph.D., Economics S.J.D., Doctorate in Law |
Alma mater | Tel-Aviv University Tel-Aviv University School of Law Harvard Law School |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Harvard Law School |
Oren Bar-Gill (born 1975) is an Israeli-American lawyer,economist,and academic. He is William J. Friedman and Alicia Townsend Friedman Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School, [1] and a Sackler Fellow at Tel Aviv University. [2] He is most known for his research in contract law (especially consumer contracts),law and economics,and behavioral law and economics. [3]
Bar-Gill is the author of a book entitled,Seduction by Contract:Law,Economics,and Psychology in Consumer Markets, [4] and has published over 60 academic articles. His research spans the field of consumer economics,with particular emphasis on the relationships between consumers and commercial entities, [5] and consumer psychology,and it derives legal policy implications aimed at helping consumers. [6] Since 2005,he has been serving as Council Member for Gerson Lehrman Group. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Legal Analysis , [7] Associate Editor of Behavioral Science &Policy , [8] and is associated with the advisory boards of Singapore Journal of Legal Studies, [9] U.S. Financial Diaries, [10] and Berlin Center for Consumer Policies, [11] He serves (together with Omri Ben-Shahar and Florencia Marotta-Wurgler) as Reporter for the Restatement of the Law,Consumer Contracts. [12] [13]
Bar-Gill was born in 1975 in Israel to parents Aharon and Nechama. Being raised in Israel,he completed his high school studies at Ort Kiryat Bialik in 1992. He graduated from Tel-Aviv University with a B.A. degree in economics in 1995. He then earned an LL.B.,as well as an M.A. degree in Law and Economics from Tel-Aviv University in 1996. He has two doctorate degrees,in economics and in law. Prior to receiving a Ph.D. degree in economics at Tel-Aviv University in 2002,he enrolled at Harvard Law School and earned an LL.M. degree in 2001. Later on,he completed his S.J.D. (Doctorate in Law) from Harvard Law School,with a dissertation titled "Essays in Law and Economics." [14] [15]
Bar-Gill started his academic career as a Junior Fellow at Harvard University's Society of Fellows,from 2002 until 2004. In 2005,he became an assistant professor at New York University School of Law. He was promoted to associate professor in 2007,and to Professor in 2009. In 2013,he became the Evelyn and Harold Meltzer Professor of Law and Economics at New York University School of Law. In 2014,he moved to Harvard Law School,where he serves as William J. Friedman and Alicia Townsend Friedman Professor of Law and Economics. [16] Bar-Gill has also been serving as Sackler Fellow and visiting professor of law at Tel Aviv University since 2017.
Bar-Gill was the Director of the NYU Center for Law,Economics and Organization from 2009 until 2013. [16]
Bar-Gill has published a book and over 60 articles on topics related to contracts (with a focus on consumer contracts),law and economics,and behavioral law and economics. [17] [18] His research has been featured by numerous magazines,such as The New Republic , [19] Time , [20] The Regulatory Review , [21] Slate , [22] and The Intercept . [23]
Bar-Gill's book,Seduction by Contract:Law,Economics and Psychology in Consumer Markets,explores how consumer contracts emerge from the interaction between market forces and consumer psychology. Adam B. Badawi regards Bar-Gill as "one of the foremost and influential proponents of a behaviorist take on contracts," and notes Bar-Gill's portrayal of "consumers as the targets of temptation." [24] Hugh Collins is of the view that the book "consists of a detailed explanation of [the interaction between market forces and consumer psychology],exploring credit cards,mortgages,and cell phones." [19]
In other work,Bar-Gill argued for establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB),explaining that,prior to the creation of the CFPB,regulators with authority to police Consumer Financial Products (CFPs) lack the motivation to do so and that regulators with motivation to protect consumers lack authority over important CFP sellers. [25] In his article,titled "Seduction by contract:do we understand the documents we sign?" he described how policymakers are paying increasing attention to the problem of how behavioral market failures hurt consumers and undermine efficiency,and are responding with increasingly sophisticated regulatory tools. He also highlighted the dire need for designing "disclosures that can really empower consumers and solve the behavioral market failure." [26] In 2021,Bar-Gill,together with Omri Ben-Shahar from the University of Chicago,developed a new theory of manipulation in consumer markets—one that focuses on how truthful information is prioritized. [27]
In his 2019 study,Bar-Gill provided an account of simple disclosures like genetically modified food disclosures,and how they might cause market distortions and inefficiencies,when consumers draw false inferences from the disclosure,and when the disclosure of one dimension elevates this dimension at the expense of other dimensions,and consequently distorts demand for the product and might even alter the product itself. [28] More recently,he presented his viewpoints on the relationship that exists between the informational content of willingness to pay (WTP) and the wealth distribution,while discussing the effect of forward-looking rationality on the WTP measure. [29] Furthermore,in an article co-authored with Ariel Porat from Tel Aviv University,Bar-Gill highlighted how the prospect of a sale affects the seller's incentive to investigate,and what possible impact the disclosure rules of contract law have on the investigation decision. [30]
Tel Aviv University is a public research university in Tel Aviv,Israel. With over 30,000 students,it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv,the university is the center of teaching and research of the city,comprising 9 faculties,17 teaching hospitals,18 performing arts centers,27 schools,106 departments,340 research centers,and 400 laboratories. It is ranked 7th in the world by PitchBook data index.
The University of Chicago Law School is the law school of the University of Chicago,a private research university in Chicago,Illinois. It employs more than 180 full-time and part-time faculty and hosts more than 600 students in its Juris Doctor program,while also offering the Master of Laws,Master of Studies in Law and Doctor of Juridical Science degrees in law.
Matthew Joel Rabin is the Pershing Square Professor of Behavioral Economics in the Harvard Economics Department and Harvard Business School. Rabin's research focuses primarily on incorporating psychologically more realistic assumptions into empirically applicable formal economic theory. His topics of interest include errors in statistical reasoning and the evolution of beliefs,effects of choice context on exhibited preferences,reference-dependent preferences,and errors people make in inference in market and learning settings.
Yochai Benkler is an Israeli-American author and the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet &Society at Harvard University. In academia he is best known for coining the term commons-based peer production and his widely cited 2006 book The Wealth of Networks.
Michael J. Trebilcock is a New Zealand-born,Canadian-based law academic. He is currently distinguished university professor and professor of law at the University of Toronto,specializing in law and economics.
Vanderbilt University Law School is the law school of Vanderbilt University. Established in 1874,it is one of the oldest law schools in the southern United States. Vanderbilt Law enrolls approximately 640 students,with each entering Juris Doctor class consisting of approximately 175 students.
Lucian Arye Bebchuk is a professor at Harvard Law School focusing on economics and finance.
Alon Harel is a law professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,where he holds the Phillip P. Mizock &Estelle Mizock Chair in Administrative and Criminal Law. He was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,Yale University,and Balliol College,Oxford. He has been a visiting professor at Columbia University,Harvard University,the University of Toronto,the University of Texas at Austin,and the University of Chicago.
The Arrow information paradox,and occasionally referred to as Arrow's disclosure paradox,named after Kenneth Arrow,American economist and joint winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics with John Hicks,is a problem faced by companies when managing intellectual property across their boundaries. It occurs when they seek external technologies for their business or external markets for their own technologies. It has implications for the value of technology and innovations as well as their development by more than one firm,and for the need for and limitations of patent protection.
Menachem Mautner is an Israeli professor of Comparative Civil Law and Jurisprudence at Tel Aviv University. In 2000–2002,he was Dean of the Faculty of Law.
The American Law and Economics Association (ALEA),a United States organization founded in 1991,is focused on the advancement of economic understanding of law,and related areas of public policy and regulation. It promotes research in law and economics. The organization's official journal is the American Law and Economics Review,established in 1999.
Florencia Marotta-Wurgler is a Professor of Law at the New York University School of Law. Her specialties are contract law and commercial law.
Arie Reich is an Israeli legal scholar specializing in international trade law and European Union Law. He is a full professor at the Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Law,and serves as the Vice Rector of the university. He previously served as the Dean of the Faculty of Law and Dean of students.
Christopher Tarver Robertson is a specialist in health law working at the intersection of law,philosophy and science. His research explores how the law affects decision making in domains of scientific uncertainty and misaligned incentives,which he calls "institutional epistemology." Robertson is professor,N. Neal Pike Scholar,and Associate Dean at Boston University. He is affiliated faculty with the Petrie Flom Center for Health Care Policy,Bioethics and Biotechnology at Harvard Law School. His work includes tort law,bioethics,the First Amendment,and corruption in healthcare and politics. His legal practice has focused on complex litigation involving medical and scientific disputes.
Omri Ben-Shahar is the Leo and Eileen Herzel Professor of Law,and Kearney Director and founder of the Coase-Sandor Institute for Law and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School. Prior to his tenure at University of Chicago in 2008,Ben-Shahar was the Kirkland and Ellis Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Michigan,and was the founder and director of the Olin Center for Law and Economics from 1999 to 2008.
Ofer Grosskopf is an Israeli judge and former law professor who has served as a justice of the Israeli Supreme Court since 2018.
Edi Karni is an Israeli born American economist and decision theorist. Karni is the Scott and Barbara Black Professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins University. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and an Economic Theory Fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory.
Ariel Porat is the president of Tel Aviv University (TAU),a full professor and former dean at TAU's Buchmann Faculty of Law. Until his appointment as president,he was a distinguished visiting professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities,incumbent of the Alain Poher Chair in Private Law at TAU,and recipient of The EMET Prize for Art,Science and Culture for Legal Research.
Dan Amiram is the Dean and the Joseph Safra Capital markets and Financial Institutions Chaired professor of Business at the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University. He also serves as the head of the Fintech concentration in the MBA program. He served and currently serves on public companies' board of directors in the United States and Israel.
Joseph (Yossi) Klafter is an Israeli chemical physics professor who is the Heineman Chair of Physical Chemistry at Tel Aviv University,and was the eighth President of Tel Aviv University from 2009 to 2019. He won the 2020 Israel Prize in the fields of Chemistry and Physics.