Almost all theorizing about law, including the rule of law, begins with government. Analysts from a wide variety of perspectives make this presumption. We contest this presumption. In this paper, we ask whether rule of law is an equilibrium in the absence of private ordering. To address this...

In a study that follows in Macaulay's (1963) footsteps, we asked businesses what role formal contract law plays in managing their external relationships. We heard similar answers to the ones Macaulay obtained fifty years ago from smaller companies that described important but...