This chapter surveys the historical evidence on the role of institutions in economic growth
and points out weaknesses in a number of stylized facts widely accepted in the growth …

This chapter surveys major issues arising in the economic analysis of contract law. It begins
with an introductory discussion of scope and methodology, and then addresses four main …

The authors first explain the various ways the rationality assumption is used in legal
scholarship and why it leads to unsatisfying policy prescriptions. They then systematically …

For decades, sociologists have employed the concept of social norms to explain how society
shapes individual behavior.'In recent years, economists and rational choice theorists in …

The standard economic theory of intellectual property (" IP") is well known. Intellectual
creations are public goods that are much easier and cheaper to copy than they are to …

This lecture sets out to demystify the topic of legal pluralism by examining the relationship
between legal pluralism, normative pluralism, and general normative theory from a global …

The emergence of New Institutional Economics toward the end of the twentieth century
profoundly changed our ideas about the organization of economic systems and their social …

Businesspeople need contractual assurance. Most transactions are less straightforward than
a cash sale of an easily identifiable item. Buyers need assurance of the quality of what they …

Richard Posner wrote in 1986 that the law and economics movement is “perhaps the most
important development in legal thought in the last quarter century." Through its application of …

The corporate world today subdivides into rival systems of dispersed and concentrated
ownership, with different corporate governance structures characterizing each. Various …