Richard Epstein

American legal scholar at NYU Law and Hoover Institution — author of Takings, Simple Rules for a Complex World, and Forbidden Grounds — the leading libertarian legal theorist in the US — who has argued for radical simplification of regulatory law.

Creates the constitutional property rights argument against the regulatory state — Epstein's Takings argument (that regulatory restrictions on property use require just compensation under the Fifth Amendment) is the most consequential libertarian constitutional argument of the 20th century, directly influencing Supreme Court property rights doctrine.