This is a history—though, intentionally, a brief history—of the rise of law and economics as a field of thought in the U.S. college and law school academy, though the field has expanded to Europe and South America and will expand further as other legal systems develop. This book explains the origins of the field and the sources of its growth during its formative period. It describes the intellectual roots of the field, and the field’s relationship to the understanding of the role of the legal system in directing the functioning of the economy. It describes the effect of the Great Depression and the expansion of governmental power on advancing the functional approach. The book then addresses the work of Aaron Director, during the late 1950s, on focusing economic analysis as a means of understanding the effects of the legal and regulatory system on the allocation of resources in the society. Then it turns to the subsequent intellectual founders of the field—Ronald Coase, Guido Calabresi, and Richard Posner—and attempts to explain the significance of their work. It also discusses the efforts of Robert Bork and Henry Manne toward the influence of law and economics on public policy. The book ends with the founding of the American Law and Economics Association in 1991. This is an essential companion to law and economics texts for undergraduate law and economic students and, especially, a general supplement to first-year casebooks for law school students.

Ancient Rome is the only society in the history of the western world whose legal profession evolved autonomously, distinct and separate from institutions of political and religious power. Roman legal thought has left behind an enduring legacy and exerted enormous influence on the shaping of modern legal frameworks and systems, but its own genesis and context pose their own explanatory problems. The economic analysis of Roman law has enormous untapped potential in this regard: by exploring the intersecting perspectives of legal history, economic history, and the economic analysis of law, the two volumes of Roman Law and Economics are able to offer a uniquely interdisciplinary examination of the origins of Roman legal institutions, their functions, and their evolution over a period of more than 1000 years, in response to changes in the underlying economic activities that those institutions regulated. Volume I explores these legal institutions and organizations in detail, from the constitution of the Roman Republic to the management of business in the Empire, while Volume II covers the concepts of exchange, ownership, and disputes, analysing the detailed workings of credit, property, and slavery, among others. Throughout each volume, contributions from specialists in legal and economic history, law, and legal theory are underpinned by rigorous analysis drawing on modern empirical and theoretical techniques and methodologies borrowed from economics. In demonstrating how these can be fruitfully applied to the study of ancient societies, with due deference to the historical context, Roman Law and Economics opens up a host of new avenues of research for scholars and students in each of these fields and in the social sciences more broadly, offering new ways in which different modes of enquiry can connect with and inform each other.

An intellectual history of law and economics : 1793-2003 / Charles K. Rowley -- Methodological debates in law and economics : the changing contours of a discipline / Francesco Parisi -- The fire of truth : a remembrance of law and economics at Chicago, 1932-1970 / edited by Edmund W. Kitch -- The economic way of looking at behavior / Gary S. Becker -- Cost, choice, and catallaxy : an evaluation of two related but divergent Virginia paradigms / James M. Buchanan -- The pointlessness of Pareto : carrying Coase further / Guido Calabresi -- The relevance of transaction costs in the economic analysis of law / Ronald H. Coase -- The confluence of justice and efficiency in the economic analysis of law / Robert D. Cooter -- Toward a theory of property rights II : the competition between private and collective ownership / Harold Demsetz -- The economist in spite of himself / Richard A. Epstein -- The art of law and economics : an autobiographical essay / William M. Landes -- How law and economics was marketed in a hostile world : a very personal history / Henry G. Manne -- The law and economics movement : from Bentham to Becker / Richard A. Posner -- The rise of law and economics : a memoir of the early years / George L. Priest -- Why was the common law efficient? / Paul H. Rubin -- Law versus morality as regulators of conduct / Steven Shavell -- Journeys across the divides / Michael J. Trebilcock -- The case against the common law / Gordon Tullock -- Why law, economics, and organization? / Oliver E. Williamson.

Zhang argues that property institutions in preindustrial China and England were a cause of China's lagging development in preindustrial times.

Law and Economics deals with the economic analysis of legal relations, legal provisions, laws and regulations and is a research field which has a long tradition in economics. It was lost after the expulsion of some of the leading economists from Germany during 1933 to 1938, but then revived in Chicago. Both the subject of Law of Economics and the need for a concise Encyclopedia is particularly relevant in Europe today. Currently in the European Union there are several different legal cultures: the Anglo-Saxon legal framework, the German legal framework, which for example also includes Greece, and the Roman legal family—three jurisdictions which have to be covered with one and the same theory. In the EU, the task of the European Commission to interact with the various European jurisdictions means different legal cultures collaborating and some degree of harmonization is necessary. The result is an immediate need, if only for the science, to show how a given problem is solved in each legal tradition and jurisdiction. This Encyclopedia provides both a common language and precise definitions in the field, which will be useful in the future to avoid misunderstandings during harmonization of EU Law

By providing readers with a noncritical description of the broad contours of each school of thought, Mercuro and Medema convey a strong sense of the important elements of each of these interrelated yet varied traditions.

In a concise, compelling argument, one of the founders and most influential advocates of the law and economics movement divides the subject into two separate areas, which he identifies with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. The first, Benthamite, strain, “economic analysis of law,” examines the legal system in the light of economic theory and shows how economics might render law more effective. The second strain, law and economics, gives equal status to law, and explores how the more realistic, less theoretical discipline of law can lead to improvements in economic theory. It is the latter approach that Judge Calabresi advocates, in a series of eloquent, thoughtful essays that will appeal to students and scholars alike.

Adam Smith and the Philosophy of Law and Economics is a unique book. Malloy and Evensky bring together a team of international and interdisciplinary scholars to address the work of Adam Smith as it relates to law and economics. In addition to their own contributions, the book includes works by Dr. John W. Cairns of the University of Edinburgh, Dr. J. Ralph Lindgren of Lehigh University, Professor Kenneth A.B. Mackinnon of the University of Waikato, and the Honorable Richard A. Posner of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. Together these authors bring expertise from the areas of law, philosophy, history, economics, and law and economics to a new study of Adam Smith and his work. Part One of the book presents new and important observations on Smith's views on community, ethics, the court system, criminal law, and delictual or tort law liability. In this part of the book Smith's work is also examined from the perspective of his use as persuasive authority in the works of modern legal economists. In Part Two the `living Smith' is explored by way of a debate between two major contributors in the field of law and economics. The debate and its analysis create a unique and contemporary opportunity to study Smith as a foundational source in the midst of a current academic and social policy dispute. The understanding of Adam Smith that emerges from this book is new and complex. It will challenge the one-dimensional portrayals of Smith as a promoter of self-interest and it will correct many of the misinterpretations of Smith that are currently fashionable in the worlds of law and economics and the philosophy of law.

Posner uses economic analysis to probe justice and efficiency, primitive law, privacy, and the constitutional regulation of racial discrimination.

Distinguished by brevity, lucid writing, and well-chosen examples, An Introduction to Law and Economics, now in its Fifth Edition, focuses on a set of core topics that include property, contracts, torts, criminal law, and litigation. Avoiding specialized jargon and mathematics, Polinsky teaches students how to think like an economist and understand legal issues from an economic perspective. New to the Fifth Edition: A streamlining of the products liability chapter A revised discussion of the redistributive effects of legal rules to reflect more recent scholarship on this topic The addition of several other refinements in the text and in new footnotes An updated bibliography Professors and students will benefit from: Solid coverage of relevant economic principles A normative approach that illustrates how to assess legal rules and policies in terms of economic and social goals Clear explanations of concepts