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...

Is the common law efficient? Neoclassical economists debate whether our inherited systems of judge-made law maximize wealth whereas Austrian economists typically adopt much different standards. The article reviews neoclassical and Austrian arguments about efficiency in the common law. After...

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...

Should law be provided centrally by the state or by some other means? Even relatively staunch advocates of competition such as Friedrich Hayek believe that the state must provide law centrally. This article asks whether Hayek’s theories about competition and the use of knowledge in society...