Comparative law and economics is an interdisciplinary research field in
which differences among legal systems are analyzed from an economic point of view.
The papers in this path-breaking collection illustrate those differences,
describe their economic effects and discover which legal rules or systems are optimal from
an economic viewpoint. The volume brings together twenty important contributions on
property law, contract law, tort law, corporate law, intellectual property law, litigation
law and the legal system, and shows how economics can enrich the study of comparative law.
Edited by Gerrit De Geest, School of Law, Washington University in St.
Louis, US
Contents:
Acknowledgements
Introduction Gerrit De Geest
PART I CLASSICS
1. Adam Smith ([1776], 1976), ‘Of the Division of Stock’ and, ‘Of the
Discouragement of Agriculture in the ancient State of Europe after the Fall of the Roman
Empire’ in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations’
2. Douglass C. North and Robert Paul Thomas (1973), ‘The Issue’ and ‘France
and Spain – The Also-rans’
3. Saul Levmore (1986), ‘Rethinking Comparative Law: Variety and Uniformity in
Ancient and Modern Tort Law’
4. Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny
(1998), ‘Law and Finance’
PART II PROPERTY LAW
5. Steven N.S. Cheung (1969), ‘Transaction Costs, Risk Aversion, and the Choice
of Contractual Arrangements’
6. Martin J. Bailey (1992), ‘Approximate Optimality of Aboriginal Property
Rights’
7. Michael A. Heller (1998), ‘The Tragedy of the Anticommons: Property in the
Transition from Marx to Markets’
8. Robert D. Cooter (1999), ‘Mongolia: Avoiding Tragedy in the World’s Largest
Common’
9. Erica Field (2005), ‘Property Rights and Investment in Urban Slums’
PART III COURTS AND THE LEGAL SYSTEM
10. Edward L. Glaeser and Andrei Shleifer (2002), ‘Legal Origins’
11. Simeon Djankov, Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes and Andrei Shleifer
(2003), ‘Courts’
12. Thorsten Beck, Asli Demirgüç-Kunt and Ross Levine (2003), ‘Law and
Finance: Why does Legal Origin Matter?’
13. Tom Ginsburg and Glenn Hoetker (2006), ‘The Unreluctant Litigant? An
Empirical Analysis of Japan’s Turn to Litigation’
14. Gillian K. Hadfield (2008), ‘The Levers of Legal Design: Institutional
Determinants of the Quality of Law’
PART IV OTHER
15. Henry Hansmann and Marina Santilli (1997), ‘Authors’ and Artists’ Moral
Rights: A Comparative Legal and Economic Analysis’
16. Ronald J. Gilson (1999), ‘The Legal Infrastructure of High Technology
Industrial Districts: Silicon Valley, Route 128, and Covenants Not to Compete’
17. Simon Johnson, Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes and Andrei Shleifer (2000),
‘Tunneling’
18. Henrik Lando and Caspar Rose (2004), ‘On the Enforcement of Specific
Performance in Civil Law Countries’
19. Michael L. Smith (2005), ‘Deterrence and Origin of Legal System: Evidence
from 1950–1999’
20. Francesco Parisi, Vernon Valentine Palmer and Mauro Bussani (2007), ‘The
Comparative Law and Economics of Pure Economic Loss’
Name Index
680 pages , Hardcover
