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Jonathan Klick

Professor of Law

Jonathan Klick

Jonathan Klick’s work focuses on identifying the causal effects of laws and regulations on individual behavior using cutting-edge econometric tools. Specific topics addressed by Klick’s work include the relationship between abortion access and risky sex, the health behaviors of diabetics, the effect of police on crime, addiction as rational choice, how liability exposure affects the labor market for physicians, as well as a host of other issues. Continue reading… Jonathan Klick’s work focuses on identifying the causal effects of laws and regulations on individual behavior using cutting-edge econometric tools. Specific topics addressed by Klick’s work include the relationship between abortion access and risky sex, the health behaviors of diabetics, the effect of police on crime, addiction as rational choice, how liability exposure affects the labor market for physicians, as well as a host of other issues. His scholarship has been published in numerous peer-reviewed economics journals, including The Journal of Economic Perspectives, The Journal of Law & Economics, The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, and The Journal of Legal Studies. He has also published papers in The Stanford Law Review, The Columbia Law Review, and The University of Chicago Law Review. His four sons think he is the funniest person in the world, while his wife will only commit to him being in the top five. He previously worked as a cashier at the Modell’s Sporting Goods store in the King of Prussia Mall.

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Expertise

  • Law and Economics
  • Health Care Policy
  • Health Care Regulation
  • Health Economics
  • Business Entities
  • Class Actions
  • Criminal Law
  • Finance
  • Insurance Law
  • Jury Decision Making
  • Labor Economics
  • Mental Health Law
  • Product Liability Litigation
  • Regulated Industries
  • Torts

Books

THE EMPIRICAL REVOLUTION IN LAW AND ECONOMICS: INAGURAL LECTURE FOR ERASMUS CHAIR IN EMPIRICAL LEGAL STUDIES (Eleven International Publishing, 2011)

Articles and Book Chapters

Does Anyone Get Stopped at the Gate? An Empirical Analysis of State Adoption of the Daubert Trilogy, 20 SUPREME COURT ECONOMIC REVIEW 1 (2012). (with Eric Helland)

The Relationship between Abortion Liberalization and Sexual Behavior: International Evidence, 14 AM. L. & ECON. REV. 457 (2012). (with Sven Neelsen & Thomas Stratmann)

Why Aren't Regulation and Litigation Substitutes?: An Examination of the Capture Hypothesis, in REGULATORY BREAKDOWN: THE CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE IN U.S. REGULATION 227 (Cary Coglianese ed., University of Pennsylvania Press 2012). (with Eric Helland)
[Available Here]

Mobile Phones and Crime Deterrence: An Underappreciated Link, in RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON THE ECONOMICS OF CRIMINAL LAW 243 (Alon Harel & Keith N. Hylton eds., Elgar: 2012). (with John MacDonald & Thomas Stratman)

The Effect of Contract Regulation on Franchising, 168 J. INSTITUTIONAL & THEORETICAL ECON. 38 (2012).

Fire Suppression Policy, Weather, and Western Wildland Fire Trends: An Empirical Analysis, in WILDLIFE POLICY: LAW AND ECONOMICS PERSPECTIVES 158 (Karen M. Bradshaw & Dean Lueck, eds., RFF Press 2012). (with Jason Scott Johnston)
[Available Here]

Global Justice and Trade, in GLOBAL JUSTICE AND INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC LAW (Frank Garcia, Chi Carmody, & John Linarelli, eds., Cambridge Univ. Press 2012) (with Fernando Teson).
[Available Here]

Police, Prisons, and Crime (with Alexander Tabarrok), in LAW AND ECONOMICS OF CRIME (Bruce Benson, ed., Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing). (forthcoming 2011)

Legal Origins and Empirical Credibility, in DOES LAW MATTER?: ON LAW AND ECONOMIC GROWTH 99 (Michael Faure & Jan Smits eds., Intersentia: 2011). (with Eric Helland).
[Available Here]

Abortion Access and Risky Sex, in RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON THE ECONOMICS OF FAMILY LAW (Lloyd R. Cohen & Joshua D. Wright eds., Elgar 2011).

Recessions and the Social Safety Net: The Alternative Minimum Tax as a Counter-Cyclical Fiscal Stabilizer, 63 STAN. L. REV. 187 (2010) (with Brian Galle).

The Perils of Empirical Work on Institutions, 166(1) J. INSTITUTIONAL & THEORETICAL ECON. 166-170 (2010).

A More Equitable and Efficient Approach to Insuring the Uninsurable, in THE FRAGMENTATION OF U.S. HEALTH CARE: CAUSES AND SOLUTIONS (Einer Elhauge, ed., Oxford: 2010) (with Eric Helland).

Federalism, Variation, and State Regulation of Franchise Termination, 3 ENTREPRENEURIAL BUS. L.J. 355-380 (2009) (with Bruce Kobayashi and Larry Ribstein).

Terrorism (with Nuno Garoupa and Francesco Parisi), in CRIMINAL LAW AND ECONOMICS (Nuno Garoupa, ed., 2d ed., Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009).

Strong Claims and Weak Evidence: Reassessing the Predictive Ability of the IAT, 94 J. APPLIED PSYCH. 567-582 (2009) (with Hart Blanton, James Jaccard, Barbara Mellers, Gregory Mitchell, and Philip Tetlock).

Transparency Should Trump Trust, 94 J. APPLIED PSYCH. 598-603 (2009) (with Hart Blanton, James Jaccard, Barbara Mellers, Gregory Mitchell, and Philip Tetlock).

Functional Law and Economics, in THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF LAW AND ECONOMICS, (Mark D. White, ed., Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009) (with Francesco Parisi).

Passive Discrimination: When Does It Make Sense to Pay Too Little?, 76 U. CHI. L. REV. 797 (2009) (with Jonah Gelbach and Lesley Wexler).

Differential Victimization: Efficiency and Fairness Justifications for the Felony Murder Rule, 4 REV. L. AND ECON. 407 (2008)(with Nuno Garoupa).

Agency Costs, Charitable Trusts, and Corporate Control: Evidence from Hershey’s Kiss-Off, 108 COLUM. L. REV. 749 (2008) (with Robert H. Sitkoff).

Social Networks, Self Denial, and Median Preferences: Conformity as an Evolutionary Strategy 37 J. SOCIO-ECON. 1319 (2008) (with Francesco Parisi).

Do Spa Visits Improve Health: Evidence from German Micro Data, 34 E. ECON. J. 364 (2008) (with Thomas Stratmann).

Abortion Access and Risky Sex Among Teens: Parental Involvement Laws and Sexually Transmitted Diseases, 24 J. L. ECON. & ORG. 2 (2008) (with Thomas Stratmann).

More publications can be found here.

Working Papers

Regulation and Litigation: Complements or Substitutes, in THE AMERICAN ILLNESS: ESSAYS ON THE RULE OF LAW (F. H. Buckley ed., Yale University Press 2013) (with Eric Helland). (forthcoming 2013)

The Effect of Any Willing Provider and Freedom of Choice Laws on Health Care Expenditures, U of Penn, Inst for Law & Econ Research Paper No. 12-39 (November 30, 2012) (with Joshua D. Wright). (forthcoming)
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The Effect of Privately Provided Police Services on Crime, U of Penn, Inst for Law & Econ Research Paper No. 12-36 (November 4, 2012) (with John MacDonald & Ben Grunwald). (forthcoming)
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Forfeiture of Illegal Gains and Implied Risk Preferences, U of Penn, Inst for Law & Econ Research Paper No. 12-18 (Feb. 3, 2012) (with Murat C. Mungan). (forthcoming)
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What Drives the Passage of Damage Caps? (with Catherine Sharkey), in EMPIRICAL STUDIES OF JUDICIAL SYSTEMS AROUND THE GLOBE (Institutum Jurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica). (forthcoming)
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Research Areas

  • Empirical Law and Economics
  • Empirical Finance
  • Public Health

Positions

Penn Law – Professor of Law (2008- ); Visiting Professor (2007)

RAND Corporation - Senior Economist (2007- )

Mercatus Center – Dorothy Donnelley Moller Research Fellow (2002-03); Research Fellow in Health Policy (2001-02)

Visiting Professor – Penn, Columbia, University of Southern California, Northwestern, University of Hamburg, Erasmus University, University of Canterbury

American Enterprise Institute – Associate Director of Liability Project (2003-05)

Florida State University – Jeffrey A. Stoops Professor of Law (2005-08); Courtesy Professor of Economics (2004-08); Associate Professor (2007-08); Assistant Professor (2004-07)

Professional Activities

Grant Reviewer: National Science Foundation; Smith Richardson Foundation

Courses

  • Law & Economics
  • Torts
  • Corporations
  • Statistics for Lawyers

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