Professor Epstein is on his fourth visit to New Zealand. He has been enormously generous in helping people in this country with the many topics he has worked on. In the late 1980s he made a big contribution to the work of Penelope Brook, one of New Zealand’s top economists, on labour law. More recently I greatly benefited from his advice on liability and the accident compensation scheme, which dealt with whether there should be a restoration of the right to sue.

This lecture was given in Wellington on 2 August 2004, under the auspices of the Law and Economics Association of New Zealand.