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- Title
The Evolution of Economic Analysis of Law: Is Pragmatic Institutionalism Displacing Orthodoxy?
- Authors
Ostas, Daniel T.
- Abstract
Judge Richard A. Posner's approach to the economic analysis of law (EAL) has always been controversial. Challenges have come from sociologists, psychologists, and philosophers, as well as from lawyers and economists. Sociologists, emphasizing the culturally determined aspects of human behavior, have criticized EAL for ignoring the social context of economic activity. Psychologists have pointed out that the rationality assumptions of EAL ignore advances made in both cognitive science and the science of the emotions. Philosophers, among other criticisms, have linked EAL to discredited versions of utilitarianism. In law, a whole school of thought--critical legal studies--has arisen, at least in part, as an attempt to discredit the values and techniques that underscore EAL. And in economics, heterodox voices have always cautioned that the neoclassical approach is only one among many ways of conceiving the interface between law and economics. Notwithstanding these challenges, the 1970s and 1980s witnessed a dramatic out- pouring of orthodox EAL; virtually no legal topic has been left untouched.
- Subjects
LAW; SOCIOLOGISTS; ECONOMICS; SOCIAL sciences; PHILOSOPHERS; HUMAN behavior
- Publication
Journal of Economic Issues (Association for Evolutionary Economics), 1999, Vol 33, Issue 2, p287
- ISSN
0021-3624
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1080/00213624.1999.11506158