Benjamin Chen is an Associate-in-Law at Columbia Law School. He received his J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 2017 and served as a judicial law clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after graduating from law school. His research on law and legal institutions is informed by perspectives drawn from economics, philosophy, psychology, and political science. Current projects study the role of cost-benefit analysis in regulation, the theory and doctrine of judicial deference, and the ability of courts to legitimize social policy.
University of California, Berkeley, J.D. 2017
University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D. Jurisprudence and Social Policy 2017
University College London, M.A. Philosophy 2011
Ecole Polytechnique, M.S. Applied Mathematics 2010
University of Chicago, B.A. Economics 2008
Legislation and Regulation, Administrative Law, Torts, Contracts, Comparative Law, Empirical Legal Studies
Law Clerk to the Honorable Morgan B. Christen, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Mark Gergen, David Carillo, Benjamin M. Chen, & Kevin Quinn, Partisan Voting on the California Supreme Court, 93 S. Cal. L. Rev. (forthcoming)
Benjamin M. Chen, The Expressiveness of Regulatory Trade-Offs, 54 Ga. L. Rev. (forthcoming)
Benjamin M. Chen & Zhiyu Li, Judicial Legitimation in China, 53 Cornell Int'l L.J. (forthcoming)
Benjamin M. Chen, What’s in a Number: Arguing about Cost-Benefit Analysis in Administrative Law, 22 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 923 (2018)
Benjamin M. Chen & Zhiyu Li, The Foundations of Judicial Diffusion in China: Evidence from an Experiment, 14 Rev. L. & Econ. 1 (2018)
Benjamin M. Chen & Robert D. Cooter, The New Economic Freedom, 23 Sup. Ct. Econ. Rev. 59 (2016)
Benjamin M. Chen & Zhiyu Li, Explaining Comparative Administrative Law: The Standing of Positive Political Theory, 25 Wash. Int’l L.J. 87 (2016)
