Thomas S. Ulen

Research Professor
Swanlund Chair Emeritus

About

Professor Ulen received a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, a master’s from St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, and a PhD in economics from Stanford University. He was a Swanlund Chair, one of the highest endowed titles on the Urbana-Champaign campus, and was director of the College’s Program in Law and Economics. In addition, he was a research affiliate of the Environmental Council, a member of the Campus Honors faculty, and held positions in the Department of Economics and the Institute for Government and Public Affairs.

Recently, Professor Ulen served as a visiting professor at the University of Bielefeld, and as the foreign chair in international and comparative law at the University of Ghent, Belgium. He has previously been a visiting professor in Belgium, Germany, Slovenia, and a Ford Foundation Professor in Shanghai, China.

As a scholar, Professor Ulen examines a variety of issues related to economics, legal scholarship, and legal education. He has recently completed work on two new books,Cognition, Rationality, and the Law (with Russell Korobkin; University of Chicago Press) and Foundations of Environmental Policy (with John B. Braden, Edward Elgar Publishers, Ltd.). His book, Law and Economics (with Robert Cooter), now in its fourth edition, has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Korean, French, and Russian.

A prolific writer and researcher, Professor Ulen has contributed four entries—on regulation generally, quantity regulation, price regulation, and quality regulation—for the Oxford Economic History of the United States and a chapter entitled, “The Limits of Law for Imperfectly Rational Actors” for Law and Irrational Behavior (Francesco Parisi, ed., University of Chicago Press, 2003). In addition, he is editing a book of legal humor, and expanding his Illinois Law Review article, “A Nobel Prize in Legal Science,” into a book.

Professor Ulen was a member of the founding board of directors of the American Law and Economics Association and has served as a member of the editorial board of several professional journals. He is also a co-organizer, with Professor Tom Ginsburg and Professor Richard McAdams, of the Midwest Law and Economics Association Annual Meeting at the College of Law.

Education

PhD Stanford University
MA Oxford University
BA Dartmouth College

Areas of Expertise

Economics and Law

Courses

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