Steven Shavell is an eminent economist who testifies on matters involving product liability, punitive damages, contractual disputes, white-collar crime, attorney fees, class actions, and intellectual property. An academic study identifies Professor Shavell as the second most widely cited legal scholar in law and economics.
Professor Shavell has testified in litigation proceedings and before government agencies in the United States and Canada as well as at the World Bank. He has consulted to many industries, including consumer products, high tech, financial services, insurance, pharmaceuticals, and transportation.
A former Guggenheim Fellow and past recipient of the Ronald H. Coase Medal for research in law and economics, Professor Shavell is an elected fellow of the Econometric Society and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He co-founded and is a past president of the American Law and Economics Association. In addition, he is a founding director of the John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business at Harvard University and co-director of the Program in Law and Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Professor Shavell has published over one hundred articles and several books, including Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law and (with co-editor A. Mitchell Polinsky) Handbook of Law and Economics, Volumes 1–2. He serves on the editorial boards of numerous peer-reviewed journals, and co-edits both the Journal of Legal Analysis and American Law and Economics Review.
Professor Shavell teaches economic analysis of the law at Harvard Law School. He was previously on the faculty of Harvard’s Department of Economics.
