Law, Economics and Evolutionary Theory

Edited by Peer Zumbansen, Professor of Transnational Law, The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, UK and Gralf-Peter Calliess, Chair of Private Law, Comparative and International Economic Law and Legal Theory, University of Bremen, Germany

Law and economics has arguably become one of the most influential theories in contemporary legal theory and adjudication. The essays in this volume, authored by both legal scholars and economists, constitute lively and critical engagements between law and economics and new institutional economics from the perspectives of legal and evolutionary theory. The result is a fresh look at core concepts in law and economics – such as ‘institutions’, ‘institutional change’ and ‘market failure‘ – that offer new perspectives on the relationship between economic and legal governance.

‘Evolutionary theory belongs to the rare species of theories that are simultaneously fundamental and over-arching, implicating as it does numerous life contexts as well as an array of scholarly disciplines. Armed with a profound grasp of evolutionary theory and its implications to social research, Professors Zumbansen and Calliess have mobilized an appropriately diverse and truly stellar group of academics to investigate how this theory may provide new insights about law, economics, and their inter-relations. Cast against an especially broad intellectual backdrop set by the editors, this volume is sure to become a standard reference in literature.’
– Amir N. Licht, Radzyner School of Law, Israel

Zumbansen和卡利斯表示宪法法院做了一个很棒的工作in assembling papers from the leading scholars in the field, who draw on evolutionary approaches for explaining developments in both economics and the law. Anybody interested in issues of institutional change will be inspired by the wealth of ideas and the diversity of perspectives.’
– Stefan Voigt, University of Hamburg, Germany