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Matthew Adler
Leon Meltzer Professor of Law

Matthew Adler
Leon Meltzer Professor of Law

Tel: 215.898.4571
Fax: 215.573.2025
Email: madler@law.upenn.edu

Expertise

  • Administrative Law
  • Constitutional Law
  • Social Science and the Law

Bio

Matthew Adler’s work focuses on three areas: policy analysis, risk regulation, and constitutional theory. [More]

Matthew Adler’s work focuses on three areas: policy analysis, risk regulation, and constitutional theory. He is the author of numerous articles and several books, including New Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis (Harvard, 2006; co-authored with Eric Posner); and of the forthcoming Well-Being and Fair Distribution: A Framework for Policy Analysis, which systematically discusses how to integrate considerations of fairdistribution into policy analysis (Oxford 2011). Adler is an editor of Legal Theory, the leading journal in the area of law and philosophy. His edited volume, The Rule of Recognition and the U.S. Constitution (Oxford 2009; edited with Ken Himma) is an innovative work at the intersection of jurisprudence and constitutional theory, which discusses the applicability of H.L.A.’s notion of a “rule of recognition” to the U.S. legal system. Adler was recognized by law students in 2001 and 2006 with the Harvey Levin Memorial Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2007, he received the University’s Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching and in 2010 the A. Leo Levin Award for Excellence in an Introductory Course.

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Representative Professional Positions

Penn Law - Leon Meltzer Professor of Law (2006- ); Professor (2000-06); Assistant Professor (1995-2000)

Visiting Professor - Columbia, University of Chicago, University of Virginia

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, New York, N.Y. - Associate (1994)

Law Clerk to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, U.S. Supreme Court (1992-93)

Law Clerk to Judge Harry Edwards, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1991-92)

Representative Publications

WELL-BEING AND FAIR DISTRIBUTION: A FRAMEWORK FOR POLICY ANALYSIS (forthcoming Oxford University Press 2011). (forthcoming 2011)

Imposing Values: An Essay on Liberalism and Regulation, 120 ETHICS 831 (2010).

Contingent Valuation Studies and Health Policy, 5 HEALTH ECON., POL'Y & L. 123 (2010).
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THE RULE OF RECOGNITION AND THE CONSTITUTION (Oxford University Press, 2009) (co-edited with Kenneth Himma).

Future Generations: A Prioritarian View, 77 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 1478 (2009) (contribution to symposium on future generations).
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Bounded Rationality and Legal Scholarship, in THE METHODOLOGY OF LAW AND ECONOMICS (Mark White ed., Cambridge University Press, 2009).
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Risk Equity: A New Proposal, 32 HARV. ENVTL. L. REV. 1 (2008).
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Happiness Research and Cost-Benefit Analysis, 37 J. LEGAL STUD. S253 (2008) (co-authored with Eric Posner).
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Policy Analysis for Natural Hazards: Some Cautionary Lessons from Environmental Policy Analysis, 32 ADMIN. & REG. L. 11 (2007).
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Corrective Justice and Liability for Global Warming, 155 U. PA . L. REV. 1859 (2007).
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Inequality and Uncertainty: Theory and Legal Applications, 155 U. PA. L. REV. 279 (2006). (Joint work: Matthew Adler & Chris Sanchirico).
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NEW FOUNDATIONS OF COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS (2006) (with Eric Posner).
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Constitutional Fidelity, The Rule of Recognition, and the Communitarian Turn in Contemporary Positivism, 75 FORDHAM L. REV. 1671 (2006).
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Policy Analysis for Natural Hazards, 56 DUKE L.J. 1 (2006)
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Welfare Polls: A Synthesis, 81 N.Y.U. L. REV. 1875 (2006).
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Equity Analysis and Natural Hazards Policy, in ON RISK AND DISASTER: LESSONS FROM HURRICANE KATRINA 129 (Ronald Daniels et al. eds., 2006)
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Popular Constitutionalism and the Rule of Recognition: Whose Practices Ground U.S. Law?, 100 NW. U. L. REV. 719 (2006).
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QALYs and Policy Evaluation: A New Perspective, 6 YALE J. HEALTH POL’Y, L. & ETHICS 1 (2006).
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Against 'Individual Risk': A Sympathetic Critique of Risk Assessment, 153 U. PA. L. REV. 1121 (2005).
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Fear Assessment: Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Pricing of Fear and Anxiety, 79 CHI. -KENT L. REV 977 (2004).
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Risk, Death and Harm: The Normative Foundations of Risk Regulation, 87 MINN. L. REV. 1293 (2003).
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The Puzzle of "Ex Ante Efficiency": Does Rational Approvability Have Moral Weight?, 151 U. PA. L. REV. 1255 (2003).
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Constitutional Existence Conditions and Judicial Review, 89 VA. L. REV. 1105 (2003) (with Michael C. Dorf).
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COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS: LEGAL, ECONOMIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES (2000) (with ERIC POSNER).

Rights, Rules, and the Structure of Constitutional Adjudication: A Response to Professor Fallon, 113 HARV. L. REV. 1371 (2000).
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For additional publications, please consult
Current & Recent Research

Current Working Papers

Harsanyi 2.0 (working paper) (forthcoming)
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Why De Minimis? (working paper) (forthcoming)
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Well-Being, Inequality and Time: The Time Slice Problem and its Policy Implications (working paper) (forthcoming)
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Introducing a “Different Lives” Approach to the Valuation of Heath and Well-Being (with Paul Dolan). (forthcoming)
[View Document]

Representative Professional Activities

Co-organizer, Conference on Constitutional Theory (annual conference of leading constitutional theorists, at Vanderbilt Law School, NYU Law School, and Penn Law; first session, April 2003; second session, October 2004; third session, April 2006).

Co-organized Symposia on: Risk and the Law, Penn Law, 2005; Preferences and Rational Choice, Penn Law, 2002; Rights and Rules, Columbia, 1999; Cost-Benefit Analysis, Univ. of Chicago, 1999; Law and Incommensurability, Penn Law, 1998.

Co-editor (with Brian Bix) of CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, JURISPRUDENCE, AND LEGAL PHILOSOPHY ABSTRACTS (on-line SSRN journal publishing abstracts of working papers and forthcoming articles).

 
Matthew Adler

Curriculum Vitae

Related Links

Education

  • J.D. - Yale - '91
  • M.Litt. (history) - Oxford - '87
  • B.A. - Yale - '84

Courses Taught

  • Administrative Law
  • Constitutional Law
  • Constitutional Theory

Research Areas

  • Constitutional Theory
  • Cost-Benefit Analysis
  • Regulatory Theory
  • Risk Regulation

AREAS OF EXPERTISE FOR MEDIA

  • Administrative Law
  • Constitutional Law
  • Executive Branch & Federal Agencies
  • Jurisprudence
  • Philosophy of Law
  • Political Philosophy
  • Public Policy Analysis
  • Separation of Powers
  • Transparency & Open Government

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