At once it must be recognized that religious law by its very nature regulates and restricts the conduct of its adherents. One of the major foci of The Oxford Handbook of Judaism and Economics is therefore to describe the impact economic regulation in Jewish law has on the integration of Jews into the economic fabric of societies governed by different legal systems. Factors that impede integration, as well as those that facilitate it, are identified. More globally, a number of the papers in this volume discuss the positive contribution of Jewish business ethics to the morality of the marketplace, as well as Jewish legal perspectives on economic public policy. In the discipline of economics, advances in theory provide the grist for debate regarding the appropriate role for government. Accordingly, this volume presents papers dealing with economic theory in the Bible and Talmud, as well as comparative law studies that relate to economics. Also included are studies of the influence of religious economic law on the economic sphere of life in societies of the past. Finally, this work investigates how successfully Jews, as a people, have integrated into American economic life, and the related question of how economic forces have played a role in causing the American Jew to assimilate, shedding religious practice and commitment.
Contributors
Prologue
Acknowledgments
Introduction 3
I Economic Theory in the Bible by Aaron Levine
1 The Right to Return: The Biblical Law of Theft by Aaron Levine 29
2 Eliezer the Matchmaker: Ethical Considerations and Modern Negotiation Theory by Jacob Rosenberg 42
3 Land Concentration, Efficiency, Slavery, and the Jubilee by Aaron Levine 74
II Economic Theory in the Talmud by Avi Weiss
4 Risk and Incentives in the Iska Contract by Avi Weiss 91
5 Externalities and Public Goods in the Talmud by Jeffrey L. Callen 107
6 An Extended Talmudic Search Model by Ephraim Kleiman 127
7 Optimal Precautions and the Law of Fire Damages by Yehoshua Liebermann 146
8 Valuation in Jewish Law by Jacob Rosenberg 168
9 Could What You Don't Know Hurt You? Information Asymmetry in Land Markets in Late Antiquity by Keith Sharfman 182
III Jewish Law, Ethics, and the Modern Society by Michael Szenberg
10 Hetter Iska, the Permissible Venture: A Device to Avoid the Prohibition Against Interest-Bearing Loans by Michael Szenberg 197
11 Ethical Demands on Creditors in Jewish Tradition by J. David Bleich 221
12 The Jewish Prohibition of Interest: Themes, Scopes, and Contemporary Applications by Yoel Domb 239
13 Interloping Behavior in the Marketplace in Jewish Law by Daniel Z. Feldman 255
14 Principles of Ethical and Communal Investment in Judaism: A Jewish Law Approach by Howard Jachter 269
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