ABSTRACT
Modern law and economics scholars would fully accept the goal of minimizing what Guido Calabresi calls primary and tertiary costs—accident losses and administrative costs—at least net of benefits. But there is no careful evaluation of costs versus benefits in Calabresi, except to recognize the general benefits of driving and of walking. According to Calabresi, there are two methods for reducing the sum of these three types of costs: general deterrence and specific deterrence. General deterrence, through the market, places accident costs on the party that causes the accident, in the same way that the price system places the cost of a resource on the person who consumes the resource. This distillation of Calabresi’s analysis into three sets of costs and the distinction between what he calls general and specific deterrence capture the basis of his ideas, but grossly understate the complexity of his treatment in his effort comprehensively to both explain and criticize all of accident law.
