The Rise of Law and Economics. An Intellectual History

Translated to Russian by A.F. Vasiliev; under scientific ed. A. Smirnov. – Moscow: Gaidar Institute Press, 2024. – 224 p. – (Series "Law and Economics").

ISBN 978-5-93255-661-0

This book proposes a brief history of the emergence and approval of the economic theory of law as a field of research in American colleges and law schools, explains the origin of this industry and sources of its growth in the key period of its formation and describes the intellectual roots of this discipline and its connection with the understanding of the legal system as the fact that sets the direction of the functioning of the economy. The author shows what influence Great depression and the expansion of the state’s powers on the development of such an approach to law had. The book also discusses the works of Aaron Director of the late 1950s, the attention in which is focused on economic analysis as a means of understanding the influence of the legal and regulatory system on the distribution of resources in society. Then the author turns to other intellectual founders of this discipline – Ronald Coase, Guido Calabrezi and Richard Pozner – and tries to clarify their contribution. The book also discusses the efforts of Robert Bork and Henry Mann, aimed at expanding the influence of economic analysis of the right to state policy. The book ends with the foundation of the American Association of Law and Economics in 1991.