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The law and economics movement is responsible for one of the most influential and powerful applications of neoclassical economics. Its impact on public policy debates, particularly those centering around law, has been profound. Given its neoclassical heritage, the prevailing norm in applying economic analysis to law was that the distributional implications of legal rules should not be taken into account. This essay chronicles the criticism of this distribution agnosticism and the evolution of a consensus that distributional matters must be dealt with forthrightly. The result is that law and economics can no longer be viewed as a purely scientific enterprise avoiding inevitable political choices. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]