Information for Students

I. Introduction

This workshop provides participants with an opportunity to learn about cutting-edge research in law and economics. Each workshop session, beginning on Thursday, September 11, 2008, will feature presentations from leading scholars, followed by a discussion of the presented papers. Workshop participants will include not only students enrolled in this course, but also faculty members and students throughout the university with an interest in law and economics.

The workshop meets on Thursday afternoons in 236 Hutchins Hall from 3:40 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. We will distribute copies of workshop papers in class the week before they are presented by the speaker. Additional copies of workshop papers are available outside the office door of Al LaGrone, 972 LR, or here

Students are expected to attend every meeting of the workshop and to participate in discussions throughout the semester. Since note taking is not required during sessions, we ask that you not use laptops in class.

II. Critiques

All students are required to write critiques of nine (9) of the 12 papers that will be presented during the semester. Your critiques will be made available to the speaker before the presentation. You may not submit more nine critiques during the semester. Each critique should contain two or three comments. Please begin each comment with an underlined, one-sentence summary of the main idea pursued in the comment. These headline-summaries should be articulated in the form of a question. You should then follow with a discussion elaborating on this idea/question. Please aim to limit your entire critique to 600-900 words.

All critiques are due at 5:00 PM on the Tuesday immediately before the class in which the paper will be discussed. Please submit all critiques to CTools. The file containing the critique should be named in the following manner:

Your_Last_Name.Speaker_Last_Name.doc

You should post your submission in two separate places on CTools: first, in the "Assignments" section, so we, the instructors, may read it and give you private feedback; and second, in the appropriate folder in the "Discussion" section, where it will be viewable by the speakers and other workshop participants. Please do NOT post your assignment in PDF format. Word format is preferred because it allows us to insert comments and feedback into your file and send it back to you marked. We will make every effort to give you our reactions to your critique before Thursday’s workshop session.

Your comments should take a critical look at the paper or at one of its main arguments. The goal of the exercise is to help the author improve the paper. You may question the validity of an argument; point to an overlooked implication or extension; debate the empirical robustness of claims or assumptions; relate the material to corroborating or conflicting ideas; suggest analogies to other issues or problems; or offer any other reaction or insight that would be helpful to the author. You should NOT merely summarize an idea that appears in the paper. You also should avoid generic types of criticism against an economic approach to the problem the author explores; those arguments can always be made and are neither novel nor helpful. You should focus instead on noteworthy or problematic aspects unique to the specific study being presented. Even if you like the paper and are persuaded by the thesis, try to be politely critical.

Two examples for structuring a comment appear below:

Approach #1:

(i) Explain a point made in the paper with which you disagree;

(ii)explain your objection to that point;

(iii) analyze how you might expect the author of the paper to respond to your objection; and

(iv) answer that response and explain why it does not satisfy you.

Approach #2:

(i) State a point that you think has significance but that is not fully developed in the present paper;

(ii) explain the implication or extension that you think the paper does not develop;

(iii) discuss some reasons why the author might not have developed the point; and

(iv) analyze whether failing to develop the point in this paper was a sound decision.

There is no additional written requirement for this workshop beyond the paper critiques. The final grade will reflect the weekly grades on the critiques, the trajectory of improvement that these grades reflect, as well as (and significantly) the quality (far more than quantity) of your contribution to the discussions in class.