Economic Morality and Jewish Law

The late Aaron Levine was the Samson and Halina Bitensky Professor of Economics at Yeshiva University. A leading authority on Jewish commercial law, he published widely on the interface between economics and Jewish law, especially as it relates to public policy and modern business practices. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brooklyn College, Dr. Levine earned his Ph.D. in Economics from New York University and was ordained in Jewish civil and ritual law at the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School. He was a member of the World Jewish Academy of Science and a recipient of the Irving M. Bunim Prize for Jewish Scholarship. In 1982, Dr. Levine was respondent to Milton Friedman in the Liberty Fund symposium on the Morality of the Market.

Of overriding importance in Orthodox Jewish practice are the rules pertaining to the behavior of man to his fellow man. This has its origins in the Bible, and was later extensively developed in the Talmud, starting some 2,000 years ago. The late Rabbi Professor Aaron Levine was undoubtedly the world's foremost authority on the relationship between this literature and modern economic thought. This book therefore promises to become the classical reference on this subject.

• Preface ; Acknowledgments ; Introduction ; A Tale of Two Sermons (Derashot): Jewish Law's Deontological Ethics at Work ; The Sale of the Birthright and the Bilateral Monopoly Model ; The Coase Theorem as Treated in Jewish Law ; Price Controls in Jewish Law ; Reviving Yehoshua b. Gamla's Vision for Torah Education ; Aspect of the Lemons Problem as Treated in Jewish Law ; The Living Wage and Jewish Law ; Short Selling and Jewish Law ; Glossary ; Name Index ; Subject Index