Although political and legal institutions are essential to any nation's economic development, the forces that have shaped these institutions are poorly understood. Drawing on rich evidence about the development of the American states from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century, this...

Some say that human rights are not relevant to private law because these rights are effective only in the relationship between a state and its citizens. Others might say that human rights do not affect the right of private parties to enter into contracts or to draw up wills that are entirely...