Richard A. Epstein is a Manhattan Institute visiting scholar and one of the nation's most prolific legal thinkers. Epstein's writings span a broad array of fields, from the common-law subjects of property, contracts, and torts to constitutional law and law and economics. He is the author of numerous books, including Simple Rules for a Complex World (Harvard University Press, 1995) and Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (Harvard University Press, 1985). He has written extensively on American health care, most recently in Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation (Yale University Press, 2006), and earlier in Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Right to Health Care? (Addison-Wesley, 1997). He is a columnist for Defining Ideas, from the Hoover Institution, and a contributor to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Epstein was appointed the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at New York University School of Law in 2010. He is also a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago, where he was on the regular faculty until his retirement at the end of 2010. In 1983 he became a senior fellow of that institution's MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. At the University of Chicago he edited both the Journal of Legal Studies and the Journal of Law and Economics. He has also been, since 2000, the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Epstein holds undergraduate degrees from Columbia College and Oxford University and a law degree from Yale. He was awarded an honorary doctorate of law by Ghent University, in Belgium.

---

[SORT BY CATEGORY] [SORT BY PUBLICATION TYPE]

Articles/Op-eds

• Unshackle the FDA From Rules That Kill Innovation, Forbes.com, 03-15-12
• Causing More Harm than Good: Conflict-of-Interest Rules Thwart Medical Progress, Forbes.com, 10-26-10
• Harry Reid Turns Insurance Into a Public Utility, Wall Street Journal, 12-23-09
• Impermissible Ratemaking in Health-Insurance Reform: Why the Reid Bill is Unconstitutional, Point of Law, 12-18-09
• Unmanageable Competition, Forbes.com, 11-24-09
• Is the Bonus Tax Unconstitutional?, Wall Street Journal, 03-26-09
• Mandatory Labor Arbitration, Washington Times, 03-24-09
• A Labor Dilemma For President Bam, New York Post, 10-21-08

Research

• Why Obamacare will End Health Insurance as We Know It Issues 2012 7, March 2012
• How Conflict-of-Interest Rules Endanger Medical Progress and Cures Project FDA Report 3, October 2010
• The Employee Free Choice Act: Free Choice or No Choice for Workers Civil Justice Memo/Forum 45, March 2009
• Class Actions: The Need for a Hard Second Look Legal Policy Report 4, March 2002
• Managed Care Liability Civil Justice Memo/Forum 39, Sept 2000

Podcasts

• Richard Epstein explains why the FDA should not fear conflicts-of-interest and gives his solutions for the dilemma., 10-19-10
• Jim Copland interviews Richard Epstein about the problems with the Employee Free Choice Act, 03-20-09
• Professor Epstein's third lecture "The New Antitrust: Reexamining Microsoft and Other Consent Decrees", 12-07-07
• Richard Epstein discusses his lecture entitled "Neither Liberal Nor Conservative: A Maverick's View of the Supreme Court" with James Copland, 11-08-07
• Richard Epstein and James Copland discuss the event "Aiding and Abetting Securities Liability: Reflections on Stoneridge Investment v. Scientific-Atlanta", 10-10-07

Books

• Cases and Materials on Torts (Aspen Publishers 9th ed., work in progress)
• Supreme Neglect: How To Revive The Constitutional Protection for Private Property (Oxford University Press, forthcoming)
• Antitrust Consent Decrees In Theory and Practice: Why Less is More (American Enterprise Institute, 2007)
• Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation (Yale University Press, 2006)
• Cases and Materials on Torts (Aspen Publishing 8th ed., 2004)
• Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (University of Chicago Press, 2003)
• Torts (Aspen Law and Business, 1999)
• Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good (Perseus Books, 1998)
• Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Rights to Health Care (Addison-Wesley, 1997)

Chapters

• "ProCD v. Zeidenberg: Do Doctrine and Function Mix?," in Contract Stories (Foundation Press, 2007)
• "The Optimal Complexity of Legal Rules," in Heuristics and the Law (MIT Press, 2006)
• "Weak and Strong Conceptions of Property: An Essay in Memory of Jim Harris," in Properties of Law: Essays in Honour of Jim Harris (Timothy Endicott, Joshua Getzler and Edwin Peel, eds., Oxford University Press, 2006)
• "Second-Order Rationality," in Behavioral Public Finance (E. J. McCaffrey and Joel Slemrod, ed., Russell Sage Foundaion , 2006)
• "The Optimal Complexity of Legal Rules," in Heuristics and the Law (C. Engel and G. Gigerenzer, ed., MIT Press, 2006)