Economists are often skeptical concerning the economic effects of various forms of human rights: it has been argued that basic human rights can make the legal system less efficient but also that extensive social rights are incompatible with market economies. It is argued here that basic human...

Judicial independence is not only a necessary condition for the impartiality of judges, it can also endanger it: judges that are independent could have incentives to remain uninformed, become lazy or even corrupt. It is therefore often argued that judicial independence and judicial...

This paper analyzes whether nation-state governments can increase their credibility by becoming members of international organizations. Credibility is an important asset because it determines the real interest rate and is expected to have an important impact on investment and growth. It is...

Theory about the relevance of soft law abounds; empirical research on the topic does not. This study begins to even out this imbalance by not only developing a number of conjectures based on institutional economics, but also by testing them empirically. Based on all 2,289 soft laws concluded by...

It is often conjectured that non-state dispute resolution blossoms when state courts are not independent or are perceived as low-quality courts. This conjecture implies a substitutive relationship between state and non-state dispute resolution. An alternative hypothesis argues that both the...

In economics, there is currently an important discussion on the role of legal origins or legal families. Some economists claim that legal origins play a crucial role even today. Usually, they distinguish between Common Law, French, Scandinavian and German legal origin. When these legal origins...

A country’s form of government has important economic and political consequences, but the determinants that lead societies to choose either parliamentary or presidential systems are largely unexplored. This paper studies this choice by analyzing the factors that make countries switch from...