The John M. Olin Foundation has awarded Stanford Law School a final gift of $3 million, capping off a total of $8.2 million the law school has received from the foundation for its John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics.

Since its inception in 1987, the John M. Olin Program has provided students and faculty with a keener understanding of the economic impacts of the law. One hundred thirty-five distinguished scholars from the United States and abroad have given presentations at the Law and Economics Seminar, while faculty have produced 296 working papers, most of which have been published in premier journals of law and economics.

In addition, the school has awarded 369 faculty and student research grants, which have supported studies on such topics as the effect of corporate governance on firms’ market values, the growth of employment discrimination cases in the 1990s, an evaluation of coupon settlements in antitrust cases, and the role of institutional investors in opposing antitakeover provisions in initial public offerings.

“It would be difficult to overstate the importance of what the John M. Olin Foundation has done for Stanford,” said Larry D. Kramer, Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Dean. “With its support, we have built one of the finest programs in the country in law and economics; this final, very generous gift will help ensure that the future of that program is equally bright.”

One of the measures of the success of Stanford’s law and economics program is the number of students who have gone on to academic careers. Graduates of the program are now teaching in the economics departments or law or business schools at Columbia, Cornell, Emory, Harvard, London School of Economics, Minnesota, Northwestern, Pennsylvania, Stanford, Texas, University of California at Berkeley, University of Southern California, and Wisconsin.

“The John M. Olin Foundation is really the organization that has caused this to happen,” said A. Mitchell Polinsky, Josephine Scott Crocker Professor of Law and Economics and the director of Stanford’s John M. Olin Program. “Understanding the relationship between law and economics helps lawyers and policymakers think more clearly about the problems they work on. It helps them avoid designing laws that are inefficient and lower the welfare of society.” 

The program has recently expanded to include more post-doctoral training and to focus on empirical research. Three new appointments on the law faculty reflect this research emphasis: Robert Daines in corporate law, Mark Lemley (BA ’88) in intellectual proper- ty law, and Alison Morantz in employ- ment law. In addition, Professor Daniel Kessler ’93 of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business has become a professor, by courtesy, at the law school, teaching antitrust law.

The John M. Olin Foundation, launched in 1953 by the late inventor and industrialist, encourages research on public policy in social and economic fields. It is spending itself out of existence and is expected to cease operations in 2005.