Avishalom Tor
Professor of Law
Director, Research Program on Law and Market Behavior (ND LAMB)
Director, Notre Dame Program on Law and Economics (NDLE)
Office: 3156 Eck Hall of Law
Phone: 574-631-2537
Fax: 574-631-4197
Email: ator@nd.edu
Staff Assistant: Mary Juckett
CV: View
SSRN: View
Professor Avishalom Tor’s behavioral-legal research employs theoretical, empirical, and experimental methods in a broad range of studies that revolve around the three major themes of competition and cooperation among individuals and firms; behavioral policy-making; and the methodology of behavioral law and economics. After receiving his doctorate from Harvard Law School in 2003, Tor was a visiting research professor at George Mason University School of Law (2003) and an adviser and consultant to Commissioner Harbour at the Federal Trade Commission on various matters of antitrust law and economics (2003-2006). Before visiting Notre Dame Law School in 2010 and joining the faculty in 2011, Tor was a senior lecturer and co-director of the Forum on Law and Markets at the University of Haifa Faculty of Law (2004-2010) and a visiting professor at Fordham Law School (2011).
Due to the widespread interest in his behavioral-legal research, Tor is frequently invited as a speaker or visiting professor at universities around the world. In just the last few years he was appointed the Max Schmidheiny Foundation Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship and Risk at the University of St. Gallen (2016), a Global College of Law visiting professor at the Catholic University of Louvain (2017), a visiting professor of law at the University of Lucerne (2017), the inaugural Distinguished Visiting Research Professor at Bucerius Law School (2018), and a global professor of law at the University of Haifa (2015-2020). Most recently, Tor was the first legal scholar to be selected as a distinguished fellow of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study (2019).
Tor teaches in the areas of antitrust, corporate law, law and economics, and behavioral law and economics. In addition to basic courses in these areas, he has taught various advanced courses and seminars, such as “Antitrust, Technology, and Intellectual Property,” “Corporate Governance: Economic Analysis,” and “Markets, Regulation, and Rationality.” His interdisciplinary work has been published in legal, psychological, decision making, and public policy journals, such as the Michigan Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Texas Law Review, Antitrust Law Journal, Psychological Science, Perspective on Psychological Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Behavioural Public Policy, and many others.
Tor’s research has won multiple grants and awards, both domestically and abroad, and received extensive coverage from international media outlets, including the Economist, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, U.S. News and World Report, and many others. Tor is also the past secretary and management board member of the European Association of Law and Economics (2008-2014) and a board member of a number of international competition law institutes.
Courses Taught
LAW 70101 - Business Associations
LAW 70117 - Antitrust Law
LAW 73117 - Antitrust, Technology, and Intellectual Property
LAW 70902 - Behavioral Analysis of Law
LAW 73126 - Seminar: Corporate Governance
LAW 73145 - Law & Economics Seminar
Scholarship
The Coherent Arbitrariness of Punishment, 112 CORNELL L.REV.(forthcoming, 2026) (with Adi Leibovitch)
A Better Nudge Definition for Behavioral Public Policy, POLICY & SOCIETY (Advance article, March 3, 2026)
N-Equality: Inequality Increases With the Number of Allocation Recipients, JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND GROUP PROCESSES (Online First, September 15, 2025) (with Stephen M. Garcia)
Personalized Behavioral Interventions are Here: Lessons for “Personalized Law,” 29 JERUSALEM REVIEW OF LEGAL STUDIES 48(2024).
If You Can’t Beat Them, Join Them: Richard Posner and Behavioral Law and Economics, 31 HISTORY OF ECONOMIC IDEAS 67 (2023) (with Doron Teichman and Eyal Zamir).
The Private Costs of Behavioral Interventions, 72 DUKE LAW JOURNAL 1674 (2023).
The Neuroscience of Social Comparison and Competition, 23 COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE, AND BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 920 (2023) (with Stephen M. Garcia).
When Should Governments Invest More in Nudging? Revisiting Benartzi et al. (2017), 18 REVIEW OF LAW AND ECONOMICS 347 (2022) (with Jonathan Klick).
The Law and Economics of Behavioral Regulation, 18 REVIEW OF LAW AND ECONOMICS 223 (2022).
Nudges That Should Fail? 4 BEHAVIOURAL PUBLIC POLICY 316 (2020).
Coherently Arbitrary Punishment Around the World in LAW AND ECONOMICS OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (KLAUS MATHIS & AVISHALOM TOR EDS., forthcoming 2027), SPRINGER NATURE (with Adi Leibovitch).
Behavioral Agency Problems and Solutions: A Research Agenda for Organizational Law and Beyond in LAW AND ECONOMICS OF ORGANIZATIONS 3 (KLAUS MATHIS & AVISHALOM TOR EDS., 2026), SPRINGER NATURE
The Malleability of Inequality Tradeoffs in LAW AND ECONOMICS OF JUSTICE: EFFICIENCY, RECIPROCITY, MERITOCRACY (Klaus Mathis & Avishalom Tor eds., 2024), Springer Nature.
Nudge Efficiency in EFFICIENCY and JUSTICE - LAW AND ECONOMICS IN ALL ITS FACETS, FESTSCHRIFT IN HONOUR OF KLAUS MATHIS (Peter Noble et al. eds., 2023), Schriften zur Rechtstheorie, Duncker & Humblot.
Social Comparison and Competition: General Frameworks, Focused Models, and Emerging Phenomena in OXFORD HANDBOOK ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COMPETITION 401 (Stephen M. Garcia, Avishalom Tor & Andrew S. Elliott eds., 2023), Oxford University Press (with Stephen M. Garcia).
What is the Psychology of Competition? in OXFORD HANDBOOK ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COMPETITION 3 (Stephen M. Garcia, Avishalom Tor & Andrew S. Elliott eds., 2023), Oxford University Press (with Stephen M. Garcia and Andrew S. Elliott).
Digital Nudging: Contours and Challenges in LAW AND ECONOMICS OF THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION 3 (Klaus Mathis & Avishalom Tor eds., 2023), Springer Nature.
The Target Opportunity Costs of Successful Nudges, in CONSUMER LAW AND ECONOMICS 3 (Klaus Mathis & Avishalom Tor eds., 2021), Springer Nature.
Social Comparison Before, During, and After the Competition in SOCIAL COMPARISON, JUDGMENT AND BEHAVIOR (J. Suls, R. Collins, & L. Wheeler eds., 2020) 105 (with Stephen M. Garcia & Zachary A. Reese).
Justifying Competition Law in the Face of Consumers’ Bounded Rationality, in NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN COMPETITION LAW AND ECONOMICS 3 (Klaus Mathis & Avishalom Tor eds., 2019), Springer Nature.
LAW AND ECONOMICS OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (KLAUS MATHIS & AVISHALOM TOR EDS., forthcoming 2027), SPRINGER NATURE.
LAW AND ECONOMICS OF ORGANIZATIONS (KLAUS MATHIS & AVISHALOM TOR EDS., 2026), SPRINGER NATURE
LAW AND ECONOMICS OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: SHAREHOLDERS, STAKEHOLDERS, AND BEYOND (KLAUS MATHIS & AVISHALOM TOR EDS., 2025), SPRINGER NATURE
LAW OF ECONOMICS OF JUSTICE: EFFICIENCY, RECIPROCITY, MERITOCRACY (Klaus Mathis & Avishalom Tor eds., 2024), Springer Nature.
OXFORD HANDBOOK ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COMPETITION (Stephen M. Garcia, Avishalom Tor & Andrew S. Elliott eds., 2024), Oxford University Press.
LAW AND ECONOMICS OF THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION (Klaus Mathis & Avishalom Tor eds., 2023), Springer Nature.
LAW AND ECONOMICS OF THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS (Klaus Mathis & Avishalom Tor eds., 2022), Springer Nature.
REGULATION LAW AND ECONOMICS (Klaus Mathis & Avishalom Tor eds., 2021), Springer Nature.
CONSUMER LAW AND ECONOMICS (Klaus Mathis & Avishalom Tor eds., 2021), Springer Nature.
NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN COMPETITION LAW AND ECONOMICS (Klaus Mathis & Avishalom Tor eds., 2019), Springer Nature.
Digital Nudging: Potential and Pitfalls, TECHREG CHRONICLE (October 2022).
Should Antitrust Survive Behavioral Economics? CPI ANTITRUST CHRONICLE 1 (January 2019)
Areas of Expertise
- Antitrust
- Corporate Governance
- Law & Economics
- Behavioral Law and Economics
- Behavioral Public Policy
- Behavioral Decision Research