保険法学では，立法論（制度論）としても解釈論としても，保険利用者の保護という政策的な観点が重視されてきた反面で，企業保険にも通ずる保険取引の原理については関心が薄かった。保険学の分野で論じられてきた「保険の二大原理」は，均質なリスクを大量に集積することを前提としているように思われ，企業保険には適合しない場合がある。そこで，保険経済学のアプローチを参照し，保険はリスクの期待値を減少させる効果はないが，プーリング等の効果によってリスクの変動性を減少する機能を持つということを保険取引の原理として位置づけるべきである。そのように考える場合，法制度は，当事者によるリスク回避手段の選択を前提としつつも，意思が不明瞭な場合等には，変動性の大きなリスクを保険カバーの対象とし，そうではないリスクは企業が自己保有することに対してインセンティヴを与えるように設計されるとよいであろう。

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Despite the increased popularity of the "law-and-economics" approach in the commercial law area in the past years in the U.S., it remains inactive in the Japanese academic circle. The natural emphasis on economic efficiency in the law-and-economics scholarship has not attracted Japanese scholars in the commercial law area. Overemphasizing an efficiency criterion is not illuminating even in the commercial law area, in which players act in economic terms rather than with some other "social" norms. But underemphasizing the law-and-economic approach leads to misunderstanding the correct roles of commercial law. While commercial law scholars generally have not shown their interest in an interdisciplinary approach, including "law- and -sociology" and "law- and- economics", law- and -sociology scholars too have been inactive in undertaking research on topics in commercial law. Thus, perhaps commercial law studies in Japan have been isolated from other areas in the sense that no interdisciplinary approach has been attempted. Given the influence of the U.S. scholarship in this area, it is fair to say that the present Japanese situation will gradually change in the future yet, it is difficult to predict when such an approach, the law-and-economics one in particular, will be popularly employed in the commercial law area in Japan.

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While judicial experts such as the Supreme Court, lawyers' association and the Ministry of Justice dominated the designs of the judicial system for many years in Japan, the users of the judicial services recently express their opinions about the desirable change of the system. That produces heated and continuing arguments between the traditional experts and the proponents of the users' views. This study shows first the characteristics of the arguments between them, second whether the discipline of law and economics can make judgments on the economic outcomes of the proposals of the desired judicial system in terms of economic efficiency, third whether the comparative study of the US' and Japan's judicial systems contribute to the arguments about the judicial reform in Japan.
Depending on the Coase theorem, which spells the quick, certain, and inexpensive legal judgment and the enforcement of it decrease transaction costs, this study argues that the situation in Japan is on the opposite side of that. It also argues that the uncertainty of the law gives more room for judicial discretion to increase transaction costs, and that the government-supported restriction of competition among lawyers gives a lot of profit to the lawyers' guild.

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In this report, I have tried first to show the characteristic viewpoints and framework of the economic approach to the law of contracts. The Problems noted here are as follows;
(1) General principles of contract law supporting the free market system, especially, (a) individual accountability and freedom of contract, (b) the binding force of contract and, remedies (including damages as a test for the efficient breach of contract), (c) fairness of the bargain and fair risk allocation;
(2) Interpretation of contract and the role of dispositive law as a means reducing information error costs;
(3) Problems concerned with control of or intervention to contracts, especially regulations of disclosure, undue influence and unfair terms.
Even so rough a survey, reveals the efficacy of 'law & economics' penetrating the economic function of legal institutions. However, the fact that this approach produces some clear explanations may not be so surprising, given the importance of economic rationality in social behavior.
However, the law & economics approach remains questionable with respect to efficiency as a normative standard for legal justice. First, efficiency without theory of wealth distribution is really neutral (the strong often becomes much stronger). Second, economic analysis treats all trading as an uncertain or groping process for equilibrium ('tatonnement') without taking into account individual differencies, which are always very important for legal justice. Third, lawyers must construct legal arguments based on traditional rules or conceptions generally containing some order of values mandated by legislators and legal traditions, which are not always in accordance with the economic efficiency.
Lastly, contrary to the above, I must say, recognition of limitations in analogies to market mechanisms do not reduce the usefulness of law & economics. The tentions between traditional legal theory and law & economics should promote new fruitful developments in both.

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経済学が他分野にあれこれ口を出して引っかき回すことを「経済学帝国主義」という.しかし,刑事政策に関しては,経済学による「侵略」はこれまで日本ではあまりされてこなかった.その理由としては,犯罪を費用・便益の視点から分析することへの強い抵抗感があげられよう.しかし,刑事犯罪は裁判で有罪となった人間を刑務所に入れればそれで片が付くわけではない.犯罪には,取り調べ費用,裁判費用,施設収容費用がかかり,さらに社会復帰ができなければまた同じ費用が何度でもかかることになる.経済学的視点がすべてに優先するとはいえないが,経済のインセンティブ構造に明らかに反したり,費用・便益の観点からきわめて非効率だったりする社会政策は,いずれは国民の支持を失い,破綻に追い込まれるだろう.本論文は,近年進みつつある厳罰化,刑事裁判,矯正,そして更生保護にまつわる現在の日本の制度設計について,経済学的視点から検討を加えることにしたい.

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経済学には制度設計に関する研究分野が潤沢てある。一般の経済学者は自由な競争はよい結果をもたらすからこそよいと主張しているに過ぎず，その根拠は「市場メカニズム（価格メカニズム）はパレート効率を達成する」といういわゆる厚生経済学の第一基本定理てある。しかし，市場がパレート効率の逹成に失敗するケースは種々存在し，政策介入，制度設計の根拠として敬重されるべきである。

現状のパレート劣位な状況に対し，普通，複数のパレート優位な状況があり，数あるパレート効率な状況の比較に立ち入るには，通常余剰分析が必要になる。余剰分析が適当な厚生評価の手段であるためには，効用の可測性（基数性）と個人間の比較可能性の仮定が必要とされ，経済学の科学性を奪うので，政策提案の際にはこれらの仮定が認めてもらえるかどうかの確詔をする必要がある。また，公共政策においては，何らかの公平性の確保を含めたシステムの導入は必要だが，現実の政策実施の前提では効率面での損失というトレードオフを引き起こす。

経済学が通常暗黙のうちに置く個人の合理性の仮定は，人間が行う選択肢の多さ，複雑さにより，計算可能性問題，先読み推量の限界の問題を引き起こすが，人間がどう合理的でないかをきちんと示してパターナリスティックな政策は採用されるべ彦であろう。

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The main problem of Law and Economics is in its peculiar attitude of using Pareto efficiency principle as a unique value criterion. If we want to develop this study further, we should introduce equity and justice criteria as well as Pareto principle in it. And the utilization of the theory of social choice will be expected to extend the possibility of Law and Economics.

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This paper analyzes the effect of occupation on the real estate auction. Hedonic analysis on the winning bid reveal that the real estate occupied by a third party are priced lower by 8％ than that without occupation. Combining with the findings in the previous literature, this paper shows that the regulation reform on the vacation introduced in 2003 decreased the transaction cost significantly but there is still room for refinement.

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The law for protecting long-term employment in Japan is mainly done by case laws, which are implicitly based on common practices of large firms in the period of high rate of economic growth in the past but are not appropriate under the stagnated economy since the early 1990s. This paper first analyzes the implicit assumptions of judges to settle the disputes for dismissals such as monopolistic labor demand by a firm, homogeneous quality and preference of workers, but they are necessarily applicable to the actual labor markets. Also, there is a trade-off of interests concerning too strict employment regulations between those who are already employed and those who seek for jobs, accounting for possible impacts on the employment behavior of Japanese firms. Secondly, the framework of desirable rules for dismissals in recession is suggested. This is to put an emphasis on procedures, rather than the judgment on adequacy of the dismissals. The procedure could be pecuniary compensations, the company's assistance to the workers for finding new jobs based on the consent of the labor union. Finally, in the Japanese labor market where the long-term employment commitment and seniority-based wages are prevalent, it is rather difficult to move from a firm to another either voluntary or involuntary. Thus, the principle of equal pay for equal work in the flexible labor markets would be an important safety-net for workers facing risks of bankruptcy or laying-off.

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