In common law legal systems, there is no legal duty to rescue persons in danger. By contrast in code-based legal systems, the principle of duty to rescue does apply. What is behind this difference? To answer this question, we develop a new model extending the reach and strength of the standard...

During the past two decades, many countries have embarked on a path of developing their financial markets, strengthening their technological base and stabilizing their economies. This paper finds that financial development and investment in information and communications technology (ICT) have...

Economists who adhere to the assumptions of homo economicus typically focus on altering external constraints through laws or regulations as the means of eliminating bad behavior. Reaching the optimal solution is simply a matter of having government adjust the price of unwanted behavior through...

Control over digital transactions has steadily risen in recent years, to an extent that puts into question the Internet’s traditional openness. In order to investigate the origins and effects of such change the paper formally model the historical evolution of digital control. In the model, the...

The issue of the stability and change of legal rules occupies a central place in the discussions of alternative ways of organizing justice and the provision of legal rules. There nonetheless remains a theoretical aspect that has never been raised in the literature on judicial decision making and...

The investment decisions of small-scale farmers in developing countries are conditioned by their financial environment. Binding credit market constraints and incomplete insurance can reduce investment in activities with high expected profits. We conducted several experiments in northern Ghana in...

Political and economic rights are envisaged as the outcome of an ongoing bargain between citizens and their rulers. Over the long run, this constitutive process shapes the development of both the economy and the state. Globalization, however, corresponds to a period where both the market and...

The process of development is linked to the rise of an integrated and competitive economy and polity that allow a maximal division of labor and innovation. This process relies on two intertwined dynamics. First, in the establishment of the rule of law, legal instruments are appropriated by those...

Définition notion essentielle de droit public économique

The relationship between law and economic development remains enigmatic. Broadly speaking, there is no doubt that legal mechanisms for social control (or ‘institutions’, to use North's words) play a major role. Nevertheless, the impact of legal organization on economic development has not...