"The law-and-economics movement remains a dominant force in American private law, despite widespread recognition that many of its assumptions are implausible and that efficiency is not the law's only goal. This book adds to the debate by showing that many leading law-and-economics arguments fail...

A new database demonstrates that between 1600 and 1830, Parliament passed thousands of acts restructuring rights to real and equitable estates. These estate acts enabled individuals and families to sell, mortgage, lease, exchange, and improve land previously bound by landholding and inheritance...