Law and Economics

Economists have long offered insight into the law. With respect to libertarianism and the analysis of the market, Nobel laureate Friedrich von Hayek's definitive works The Constitution of Liberty and Law, Legislation, and Liberty applied crucial insights from the Austrian School of Economics to legal issues. On the left, John R. Commons of the University of Wisconsin, in his The Legal Foundations of Capitalism (1921) and other works, applied economic analysis to legal institutions. A number of other economists also have dealt with legal issues, among them Nobel laureate Gary Becker's pioneering work on issues centering on discrimination and family law. During the 1960s and 1970s, however, a group of scholars went beyond simply applying economic insights to legal issues and developed a body of ...