Building with Law

Engineering, Law, and the State

Justin (Gus) Hurwitz  ·  Cambridge University Press  ·  Available for Fall 2027

Contents

Introduction

I · The State

  1. The State of Nature and the Problem of Order
  2. Liberty, Rationalization, and the Modern Citizen
  3. Collective Choice and the Design of Fairness
  4. Institutions, Development, and the Sources of Prosperity
  5. Legibility, Administration, and State Failure

II · Law

  1. What Is Law?
  2. Legal Reasoning and the Problem of Ambiguity
  3. Private Law, Public Law, and the Architecture of Legal Order
  4. Product Liability and the Legal Meaning of Design

III · Engineering, Law, and the State

  1. The Necessity and Difficulty of Regulation
  2. The Administrative State as Institutional Design
  3. Why Simple Rules Go Wrong
  4. Strategic Failure: Capture, Arbitrage, and Gaming
  5. The Economic Challenges of Regulating Complex Systems
  6. Designing for Complexity

Coda

Teaching materials are available for instructors.

ghurwitz@law.upenn.edu