The Austrian contribution to the development of law and economics is the study of endogenous rule formation, or the spontaneous evolution of social institutions, which can be traced to the founder of the Austrian School, Carl Menger. While Menger's emphasis on spontaneous institutional analysis...

This article is the edited transcript of remarks provided in November 2013 on the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of the George Mason Law and Economics Center and the 10th Anniversary of the founding of the George Mason Journal of Law, Economics & Policy. The title of the conference was “The...

F.A. Hayek focused on many traditional economic questions, and also made important contributions to law and economics. His framework differed from Kaldor Hicks efficiency and the wealth maximization norm common among neoclassical law and economics scholars. But he talked about how the common law...

Suri Ratnapala is one of the keenest and most insightful analysts of the thought of the great economist and social thinker F. A. Hayek. Hayek was the leading exemplar of the historical, or evolutionary, theory of law in the latter half of the 20th century, but his jurisprudential thought has...

This Essay examines Richard Posner's critique of F.A. Hayek's legal theory and contrasts the two thinkers' very different views of the nature of law, knowledge, and the rule of law. Posner conceives of law as a series of disparate rules and as purposive. He believes that a judge should examine...