{"id":119712,"date":"2022-05-15T12:15:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-15T17:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=119712"},"modified":"2022-05-15T11:24:34","modified_gmt":"2022-05-15T16:24:34","slug":"university-of-mississippi-department-of-economics-has-the-goods-on-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/university-of-mississippi-department-of-economics-has-the-goods-on-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Mississippi Department of Economics Has the Goods on Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

New emphasis helps students apply economic analysis to legal issues<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What is the aggregate cost of crime in the United States<\/strong>? Should banks be allowed to benefit from credit checks? Does it hurt public safety if police officers are expected to spend substantial time raising revenue by issuing tickets?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are just a few of the questions that stand at the intersection of the fields of law and economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Economics can be applied to a wide range of complex issues that are vital to society,” said Mark Van Boening<\/strong>, a professor of\u00a0economics<\/a>\u00a0at the University of Mississippi<\/strong>. “In my class, we look at court cases from the perspective of economics and efficiency.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Boening’s Law and Economics class is one of eight courses taught in the department’s new law and economics emphasis<\/a>, in which students apply economic analysis to an array of legal issues, including torts, contracts, property rights, the economics of litigation, antitrust law and regulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The emphasis requires 15 credit hours that include two required 300-level classes: Economics in the Law and Applied Price Theory. Students then choose among six offerings, which include Experimental Economics, Government and Business, Industrial Organization, Financial Economics, Labor Economics, and Public Finance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Van Boening’s class, students get hands-on experience in using economics to analyze historical court cases and present those cases to him and their classmates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In law school, you’re supposed to know the cases and then answer questions using a Socratic method, which is what we do in class,” Van Boening said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, evidence-based studies show that economics majors tend to have well above average scores on the notoriously difficult Law School Admission Test<\/strong>, a standardized test taken by prospective law students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Students with an economics background tend to have a leg up when they’re taking the LSAT because the exam is based on analytical thinking,” said Joshua Hendrickson, associate professor and chair of the Department of Economics. “We’ve had law-related economics classes for some time, and we grouped them to create the emphasis because so many of our majors apply to law school.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any advantage is significant when jockeying for a spot in a law school; programs for the entering class last fall had some 361,475 applicants, according to the Law School Admissions Council<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I’ve heard from professors at the UM School of Law that our economic majors are some of their best students,” Hendrickson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the economics-major edge continues well after law school. A recent study in The Journal of Economic Education<\/em> reported that “economics majors tend to do very well in both median and mean earnings” after they enter the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Madison Young<\/strong>, who plans to enter the University of Tennessee College of La<\/strong>w this fall, was among the students taking Van Boening’s class this spring. The Spring Hill, Tennessee<\/strong>, resident completed a double major in economics and political science and a minor in business, all while graduating magna cum laude and a member of Phi Kappa Phi<\/strong> honor society at Ole Miss<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I love to look at law from an economic standpoint,” Young said. “I want to be a corporate lawyer, so analyzing court decisions through economics is perfect for what I want to do.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Abigail Meisel<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
The law and economics emphasis offered by the University of Mississippi’s College of Liberal Arts is helping Madison Young achieve her goal of becomig a corporate lawyer. Students with economics backgrounds tend to perform well on law school entrance exams. Submitted photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New emphasis helps students apply economic analysis to legal issues What is the aggregate cost of crime in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123462,"featured_media":119714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17687],"tags":[21439,21440,21441,21442,21444,21438,5,7067,4,21446,2676,21443,655,21445],"class_list":["post-119712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-university-of-mississippi","tag-economics","tag-law-and-economics","tag-law-school-admission-test","tag-law-school-admissions-council","tag-madison-young","tag-mark-van-boening","tag-mississippi","tag-ole-miss","tag-oxford","tag-spring-hill","tag-tennessee","tag-the-journal-of-economic-education","tag-university-of-mississippi","tag-university-of-tennessee-college-of-la"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/econ.jpg?fit=695%2C303&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}