著者

松永 明

出版者

長崎大学

雑誌

經營と經濟 : 長崎工業經營専門學校大東亞經濟研究所年報 (ISSN:02869101)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.84, no.2, pp.177-198, 2004-09-27

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Recently many efforts have been done to establish criteria for analyzing legal policy making in the academic field of Law and Economics. In this paper, first, I briefly analyze the thesis of Louis Kaplow & Steven Shavell 『Fairness versus Welfare』 (Harvard University Press (2002)) and demonstrate what criteria should be applied in evaluating legal policy making. And, I conclude the effectiveness of the view that policy making should be based exclusively on the effects of the 'Welfare' or 'aggregation of individuals' well-beings' but should not depend on the notions of 'Fairness' or 'Justice'. Then, I utilize framework of this thesis and evaluate the eligibility of free service in the Public Libraries. Public Libraries are now facing increasing demand for business database and quick reference service, and are considering whether they should charge fees to such 'special' services. I discuss this issue based on the criteria of 'Welfare,' which is traditional rationale of free service of public libraries, and conclude that charging fee will be able to be justified if and only if such services are 'special' and not ordinary services. However, it is quite difficult to divide which services are defined as 'special'.