John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics
With a generous gift from the John M. Olin Foundation, Stanford Law School initiated the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics in 1987. The program supports faculty and student research, issues working papers, holds seminars and lunch discussions, and awards student fellowships in law and economics to Stanford students at the law school or in graduate programs at Stanford University.
The John M. Olin Program plays an active role in the Law School—and more generally in the university—in promoting interest in the economic analysis of law. Since the beginning of the Olin Program, more than two hundred distinguished scholars from throughout the United States have come to Stanford to give presentations to the Law and Economics Seminar. More than five hundred working papers have been distributed through the Program’s Working Paper series.
RESEARCH GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIP SUPPORT: 2024-25 ACADEMIC YEAR AND SUMMER 2025
Law and Economics Seminar Speakers and Papers During the Current Academic Year
The Seminar meetings are on Thursday from 4:15-5:45 pm (room will be announced). It is open to the Stanford community and you are welcome to attend regularly or sporadically. If you are a student and would like to take the seminar for credit either or both quarters, please contact Prof. A. Mitchell Polinsky at polinsky@stanford.edu.
List of Fall 2025 Speakers:
- October 2, 2025 | Emily Nix (Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California) “Punishing Financial Crimes: The Impact of Prison Sentences on Defendants and Their Colleagues”
- October 23, 2025 | Daniel Francis (New York University Law School), “Post-Profit Antitrust”
- October 30, 2025 | Mark Roe (Harvard Law School), “Corporate Social Responsibility’s Political Instability”
- November 13, 2025 | Hannah Shaffer (Harvard Law School), “Surveilling the Police: Do Body-Worn Cameras Prevent Police Bias from Becoming Systemic?”
For further information, please contact Dionna Rangel at drangel@law.stanford.edu.
List of Winter 2026 Speakers:
- January 15, 2026 | Jeffrey Y. Zhang (University of Michigan Law School), “Sanctioning Negligent Bankers”
- January 29, 2026 | Ronen Avraham (University of Texas Law School & Tel Aviv University Law School), “The Effects of 303 Creative v. Elenis on Discrimination Against Interracial Couples”
- February 12, 2026 | Yonathan Arbel (University of Alabama Law School), “The Silicon Reasonable Person: Can AI Predict How Ordinary People JudgeReasonableness?”
- February 26, 2026 | Anup Malani (University of Chicago Law School), “The Economics of Healthcare Fraud”
Law and Economics Seminar Speakers and Papers During the Previous Academic Year
List of Speakers/Papers From Last Year:
- Steven Shavell (Harvard Law School) “On the Law of the Household: The Principles Used by Parents in Disciplining Their Children”
- Scott Hirst (Boston University School of Law), “How Much Do Investors Care About Social Responsibility?”
- Morgan C. Williams, Jr. (Department of Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University), “Gun Violence in Black and White: Evidence from Policy Reform in Missouri”
- Joni Hersch (Vanderbilt University Law School), “Affirmative Action and the Leadership Pipeline”
- Mark A. Cohen (Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University), “Pain, Suffering and Jury Awards: A Study of the Cost of Wrongful Convictions”
- Manisha Padi (School of Law, University of California, Berkeley), “Contractual Inequality”
- Saul Levmore (University of Chicago Law School), “The Case for a Single Appellate Judge”
- Talia Gillis (Columbia Law School), “Incomplete Contracts and Future Data Usage”
