Director, John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics; Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

A pioneering American figure in the applications of economic theory to law, A. Mitchell Polinsky is a prolific scholar, producing work on the economic analysis of a wide variety of legal issues, from property to contract law to liability and punitive damages. He has written major articles on the efficacy of private damages and public penalties in deterring misconduct across a range of problems, including criminal law, environmental law, contract, and tort disputes. Professor Polinsky is the founder and director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at Stanford Law School. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a president of the American Law and Economics Association, and is currently a research associate in the Law and Economics Program of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1979, he was a member of the faculty at Harvard University.