Despite the advances in New Institutional Economics about the economic consequences of institutions and legal rules, up to now we have only limited knowledge about the mechanisms of the evolution of law. By combining the main ideas of Evolutionary Economics and New Institutional Economics this...

Despite the advances in New Institutional Economics about the economic consequences of institutions and legal rules, up to now we have only limited knowledge about the mechanisms of the evolution of law. By combining the main ideas of Evolutionary Economics and New Institutional Economics this...

Despite the advances in New Institutional Economics about the economic consequences of institutions and legal rules, up to now we have only limited knowledge about the mechanisms of the evolution of law. By combining the main ideas of Evolutionary Economics and New Institutional Economics this...

Recent research has indicated that the variations in generalized trust have deep historical roots. This paper argues that geopolitical history may be an important determinant of modern levels of trust. Specifically, regions that have historically been dominated by states of different sizes may...

We characterize the comparative efficiency of industry self-regulation as means of social control of torts. Unlike liability, which is imposed by courts ex post, industry self-regulation, much like government regulation, acts before the harm is done. As compared to government regulators,...

We develop a framework that examines the organizational challenges faced by central rulers governing large territories, where administrative power needs to be delegated to local elites. We describe how economic change can motivate rulers to empower different elites and emphasize the interaction...

Beginning in the second half of the 17th century any deputy could dismiss a session of the Polish-Lithuanian parliament by shouting: I do not allow. This political device came to be known as liberum veto, an unceasing subject of controversy. Historians blame it for the decline and subsequent...

The Law & Economics movement has occasionally been a victim of its own success. Over the past four decades, it has generated an enormous specialist literature, often explicitly intended for other specialists. As is so often the case with increased specialization, the result has been escalating...

Attorneys elected to the US House of Representatives and to US state legislatures are systematically less likely to vote in favor of tort reforms that restrict tort litigation, but more likely to support bills that extend tort law. This finding is based on the analysis of 54 votes at the federal...

Litigation aims at resolving conflicts. In this chapter we survey the law and economics literature on litigation to illustrate the scope of application of rent-seeking models and their analytical power in the study of law and procedural issues of litigation, including applications in adversarial...