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Following is an extract from Kaushik Basu’s forthcoming book The Republic of Beliefs Economists and legal scholars have had an abiding interest in the question of why so many laws languish unimplemented. Despite proclamations to the contrary, multidisciplinary research remains sparse, its success hindered by differences in method and ideology, and a touch of obstinacy. It is believed it was Mahatma Gandhi who warned us, nearly 4,000 years later, that "an eye for an eye will make the world blind". For this reason the confluence of law and economics was an active arena of engagement even before the field had a name. Underlying this notion of law is an innate sense of justice and fairness.Traditional law and economics dealt with these questions by avoiding asking them. Laws are being created and implemented all the time; one does not have to be an economist or a legal scholar to see that a poorly designed law can bring economic activity to a halt or that a well-crafted law can surge it forward.
Ever since the field came into its own in the 1960s, with the writings of legal scholars and economists showing recognition of the existence of and even need for one another, the discipline of law and economics has been gaining in prominence. Once one pauses to think, rivet manufacturingit is indeed puzzling why merely putting some "ink on paper" should change human behaviour, why a new speed limit law recorded in a book should prompt drivers to drive more slowly, and the traffic warden to run after the few who do not, in order to ticket them.The hinterland between different disciplines in the social sciences is usually a rather barren space. The need for this field was so obvious and immense that it did not brook the standard hindrances to interdisciplinary research.As so often happens, practice was ahead of precept.The realisation of the power of the law to affect markets was in evidence when, soon after the defeat of Japan in the Second World War, the allied forces quickly imposed a carefully designed antitrust law on Japan. Much of this discourse was fueled by the enormously influential debate for and against "legal positivism", which was in turn a response to Austin (1832), who argued that "a? proposition of law is true within a particular political society if it correctly reports the past command of some person or group occupying the position of sovereign in that society".The origins of law and the question of what law is and why people abide by it are matters that have long been debated. This was the so-called Anti-Monopoly Law 1947. (my italics) But why such commands are obeyed and how the sovereign can get away without obeying anyone else (to the limited extent that these are true) were poorly explained by not just Austin but also later legal scholars and philosophers. It was, for instance, soon realised by American lawmakers and political leaders that while curbing collusion was good for the American consumer, it handicapped US firms in the global space. Laboratory experiments show that capuchin monkeys give evidence of a sense of fairness and, by extension, the propensity to punish those who play unfairly.The confluence of law and economics stands out in this arid landscape.The purpose of this book is to take on this conundrum of ink on paper triggering action frontally
Ever since the field came into its own in the 1960s, with the writings of legal scholars and economists showing recognition of the existence of and even need for one another, the discipline of law and economics has been gaining in prominence. Once one pauses to think, rivet manufacturingit is indeed puzzling why merely putting some "ink on paper" should change human behaviour, why a new speed limit law recorded in a book should prompt drivers to drive more slowly, and the traffic warden to run after the few who do not, in order to ticket them.The hinterland between different disciplines in the social sciences is usually a rather barren space. The need for this field was so obvious and immense that it did not brook the standard hindrances to interdisciplinary research.As so often happens, practice was ahead of precept.The realisation of the power of the law to affect markets was in evidence when, soon after the defeat of Japan in the Second World War, the allied forces quickly imposed a carefully designed antitrust law on Japan. Much of this discourse was fueled by the enormously influential debate for and against "legal positivism", which was in turn a response to Austin (1832), who argued that "a? proposition of law is true within a particular political society if it correctly reports the past command of some person or group occupying the position of sovereign in that society".The origins of law and the question of what law is and why people abide by it are matters that have long been debated. This was the so-called Anti-Monopoly Law 1947. (my italics) But why such commands are obeyed and how the sovereign can get away without obeying anyone else (to the limited extent that these are true) were poorly explained by not just Austin but also later legal scholars and philosophers. It was, for instance, soon realised by American lawmakers and political leaders that while curbing collusion was good for the American consumer, it handicapped US firms in the global space. Laboratory experiments show that capuchin monkeys give evidence of a sense of fairness and, by extension, the propensity to punish those who play unfairly.The confluence of law and economics stands out in this arid landscape.The purpose of this book is to take on this conundrum of ink on paper triggering action frontally
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