To What Extent is the Opposition Civil Law/Common Law Relevant for Law and Economics?

The distinction between common law and civil law has been used in the law and economic literature at an epistemological, methodological and prescriptive levels. The present article will focus on the epistemological level. Is this divide relevant for assessing the relative value of law and economics in a legal system? It will be shown that this divide is largely irrelevant but that some characteristics of legal systems (instrumentality of law, autonomy of legal reasoning and freedom of judges) are relevant. This article also advocate to distinguish between functions of law and economics and between agents involved in order to gain a better understanding of the role of law and economics in a legal system