The article examines the issue of free speech in a law and economics perspective. The property rights approach is contrasted with the common law and constitutional standpoints. Consequentialist and market efficiency may not provide adequate criteria for judging limitations to freedom of speech....

Provides a discussion of the spontaneous order approach to the making of the future European constitution. We thus investigate the normative content of collective decisions in the Scottish Enlightenment tradition. Conditions of rightness depend on very strong assumptions. They shape a system of...

The purpose of the paper is to advocate that constitutions should be established through a contractarian process, rather than through conventions. To achieve it, they are studied from the perspective of the concept of common knowledge. The authors refer to its political philosophy and game...

This chapter develops an analytic framework for understanding how the economic theory of contracts applies to multi-level governance and what these theories suggest with respect to the selection of a contractual approach. It begins with an overview of the relevant theories, presents an analytic...

During the 1950s and 1960s, many economists were convinced that externalities were a cause of “market failures” -- because individuals are not capable of internalizing the costs their actions impose to others -- and therefore that the intervention of the state was necessary to allow an...