Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Origins of Law and Economics
  • Cited by 37
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
January 2010
Print publication year:
1997
Online ISBN:
9780511572135
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511572135
Subjects:
Economics, Economic Thought, Philosophy and Methodology, History, History of Ideas and Intellectual History
Series:
Historical Perspectives on Modern Economics
Information

Book description

This work analyzes the centrality of law in nineteenth-century historical and institutional economics and is a prehistory to the new institutional economics of the late twentieth century. In the 1830s the 'new science of law' aimed to explain the working rules of human society by using the methodologically individualist terms of economic discourse, stressing determinism and evolutionism. Practitioners stood readier than contemporary institutionalists to admit the possibilities of altruistic values, bounded rationality, and institutional inertia into their research program. Professor Pearson shows that the positive analysis of law tended to push normative discussions up from the level of specific laws to that of society's political organization. The analysis suggests that the professionalization of the social sciences - and the new science's own imprecision - condemned the program to oblivion around 1930. Nonetheless, institutional economics is currently developing greater resemblances to the now-forgotten new science.

Reviews

"...the book's primary appeal will be to historians of thought, who will appreciate Pearson's synthesis of what appears to be a wide range of literature. The book will appeal to a wider audience, however." Thomas J. Miceli, Constitutional Political Economy

"Heath Person has written a concise book designed both to serve as a `pre-history to the `new institutional economics' of the late-twentieth century' and to highlight the centrality of law in nineteenth-century `historical' economics (vii). Origins of Law and Economics provides a first-class pedigree that will be of use to practitioners of the new institutional economics who want to broaden and enrich contemporary debate. This is a carefully structured, well-researched book that will find a role in contemporary debate. Because that is its author's it has fulfilled the purpose for which it was designed." Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.