Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics
Title
Publication Date
2000
Publication Title
Law & Economics Working Papers
Abstract
The legal system should rely much more than it now does on statistical evidence. It should be cautious about the judgments of experts, who make predictable cognitive errors. Like everyone else, experts have a tendency to blunder about risk, a point that has been shown to hold for doctors, whose predictions significantly err in the direction of optimism. We present new evidence that individual doctors' judgments about the ordinary standard of care are incorrect and excessively optimistic. We also show how this evidence bears on legal determinations of negligence, by doctors and others.
Number
109
Recommended Citation
Cass R. Sunstein & William Meadow, "Statistics, Not Experts" (John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics Working Paper No. 109, 2000).
Additional Information
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