Comparative law by numbers? legal origins thesis, Doing Business reports, and the silence of traditional comparative law

American Journal of Comparative Law

Volumn 57, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 765-796

  Michaels, Ralf ^a  

^a DUKE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 72449168032     PISSN: 0002919X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5131/ajcl.2008.0022     Document Type: Review

References (229)

1. Mathias Siems, Book Review, 12 Ed. L. Rev. 334 (2008).
2. For a more critical perspective
3. see Mark Roe, Legal Origin and Modern Stock Markets, 120 Harv. L. Rev. 460 (2006) (arguing for politics instead of legal origins as causal factor).
4. See also the contributions to a forthcoming symposium issue of the Brigham Young University Law Review on the topic "Evaluating Legal Origins Theory."
5. E.g. John K. M. Ohnesorge, Developing Development Theory: Law and Development Orthodoxies and the Northeast Asian Experience, 28 U. Pa. J. Int'l Econ. L. (2007) ;
6. Curtis Milhaupt, Beyond Legal Origin: Rethinking Law's Relationship to the Economy-Implications for Policy, 57 Am. J. Comp. L. 831 (2009) ;
7. The famous spoof by Mark West, Legal Determinants of World Cup Success (2002), http://ssrn. com/abstract=318940.
8. The most comprehensive exceptions are Mathias Siems, Legal Origins: Reconciling Law & Finance and Comparative Law, 52 McGill L. J. 55 (2007) ;
9. Mathias Siems, Statistische Rechtsvergleichung, 37 RabelsZ 354 (2008).
10. Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez de Silanes, Andrei Shleifer, & Robert W. Vishny, Legal Determinants of External Finance, 52 J. of Finance 1131 (1997) ;
11. Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez de Silanes, Andrei Shleifer, & Robert W. Vishny, Law and Finance, 106 J. Pol. Econ. 1113 (1998).
12. KONRAD ZWEIGERT & HEIN KÖTZ, AN INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE LAW 34 (3d ed. 1996) ;
13. for the epistemological basis, see Ralf Michaels, The Functional Method of Comparative Law, in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law 339, 364-66 (Mathias Reimann & Reinhard Zimmermann eds., 2006).
14. Zweigert & Kötz, id. at 45 (3d ed. 1996). The earliest version of the chapter with the "current trends in legal science"
15. (id.) it describes dates from 1960: Konrad Zweigert, Méthodologie du droit comparé, in I Mélanges offerts À Jacques Maury 579 (1960). The idea of the lawyer as social engineer is borrowed from the early days of sociological jurisprudence;
16. see Roscoe Pound, The Theory of Judicial Decision, 36 Harv. L. Rev. 940, 954-58 (1923).
17. See now also Legal Engineering and Comparative Law (2 Vols., Eleanor Cashin-Ritaine ed., 2008-09).
18. The classical U. S. account is David Trubek & Marc Galanter, Scholars in Self-Estrangement: Some Reflections on the Crisis in Law and Development Studies in the United States, 1974 Wis. L. Rev. 1062;
19. see also John Henry Merryman, Comparative Law and Social Change: On the Origins, Style, Decline and Revival of the Law and Development Movement, 25 Am. J. Comp. L. 457 (1977) ;
20. now Kevin E. Davis & Michael J. Trebilcock, The Relationship between Law and Development: Optimists versus Skeptics, 56 Am. J. Comp. L. 895, esp. 915-38 (2008).
21. Davis & Trebilcock, supra note 9, at 898-915.
22. Holger Spamann, Large-Sample, Quantitative Research Designs for Comparative Law?, 57 Am. J. Comp. L. 797, at 806 (2009) ;
23. for a survey of attempts to overcome the problem
24. see Andrew Williams & Abu Siddique, The Use (and Abuse) of Governance Indicators in Economics: A Review, 9 Econ. of Governance 131, 150-52 (2008).
25. E.g. Günter Frankenberg, Critical Comparisons: Re-thinking Comparative Law, 26 Harv. Int'l L. J. 411, 440 (1985).
26. Thorsten Beck, Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Ross Levine, Law and Finance: Why does Legal Origin Matter?, 31 J. Comp. Econ. 653 (2003).
27. Simeon Djankov et al., The New Comparative Economics, 31 J. Comp. Econ. 595 (2003) ;
28. Bruno Dallago, Comparative Economic Systems and the New Comparative Economics, 1 Eur. J. Comp. Econ. 59 (2004) ;
29. Peter J. Boettke et al., The New Comparative Political Economy, 18 Rev. Austr. Econ. 281 (2005).
30. Holger Spamann, The 'Anti-Director Rights Index' Revisited, Rev. Fin. Stud. Advance Access published Sept. 14, 2009. doi:10.1093/rfs/hhp067.
31. John Armour et al., How Do Legal Rules Evolve? Evidence from a Cross-Country Comparison of Shareholder, Creditor and Worker Protection, 57 Am. J. Comp. L. 579, at 591-92 (2009).
32. Rafael La Porta et al., Thè Economic Consequences of Legal Origins, 46 J. Econ. Lit. 285 (2008).
33. Id. at 286. As early as 1998, the authors used "legal traditions as cruder proxies for the political orientation of governments."
34. La Porta et al., The Quality of Government, 15 J. of L., Econ. & Org. 222, 232 (1999).
35. World Bank, Legal and Judicial Reform: Observations, Experiences and Approach of the Legal Vice Presidency 20 (2002)
36. as quoted in Frank H. Stephen & Stefan Van Hemmen, Laws, Enforcement, Legality, and Economic Development, 26 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol'y 37, 46-47 (2008).
37. Starting a business; dealing with licenses (later changed to "dealing with construction permits") ; hiring and firing workers (later changed to "employing workers") ; registering property; getting credit; protecting investors; paying taxes; trading across borders; enforcing contracts; closing a business.
38. See Doing Business 2004-Understanding Regulations, xiv.
39. See, e.g., Doing Business 2004, id. at 83 ("Heavier regulation of business activities generally brings bad outcomes, while clearly defined and well-protected property rights enhance prosperity"). For criticism
40. see Amanda Perry-Kessaris, Finding and Facing Facts about Legal Systems and Foreign Direct Investment in South Asia, 23 Leg. Stud. 649 (2003).
41. Michael Strong & Robert Himber, The Legal Autonomy of the Dubai International Financial Centre: A Scalable Strategy for Global Free Market Reforms, 29 Economic Affairs Issue 2, 36 (June 2009).
42. Bjørn Høyland et al, Be careful when Doing Business (2008), available at http://www.ifiwatchnet.org/sites/ifiwatchnet.org/files/ Doing%20Business-ESOPanalysis.pdf;
43. Benito Arruñada, Pitfalls to Avoid when Measuring Institutions: Is Doing Business Damaging Business?, J. Comp. Econ. 729 (2007). The Independent Evaluation Group did not find evidence of such reactions. World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (LEG)
44. infra note 34, at 19, 46, 65-66 (2008).
45. For a survey of literature
46. see Sangheon Lee et al., The World Bank's Employing Workers" Index: Findings and Critiques-A Review of Recent Evidence, 147 Int'l Labour Rev. 416 (2008). For an alternative proposal
47. see Alvaro Santos, Labor Flexibility, Legal Reform and Economic Development, 50 Va. J. Int' l L. (forthcoming 2009).
48. ITUC welcomes World Bank's suspension of "Doing Business" labour indicator, available at http://www.ituc-csi.org/spip. php?article3505;
49. ILO, World Bank Doing Business report: The employing workers indicator (GB.300/4/1) (2007), available at http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/-ed- norm/-relconf/documents/meeting documentAvcms-085125.pdf;.
50. H. R. Rep. No. 111-151, at 44-45 (2009) (Conf. Rep.).
51. Alvaro Santos, The World Bank's Use of the "Rule of Law" Promise in Economic Development, in The New Law and Economic Development. A Critical Appraisal 253, 278-95 (David M. Trubek & Alvaro Santos eds., 2006) ;
52. Galit Sarfaty, Why Culture Matters in International Institutions: The Marginality of Human Rights at the World Bank, Am. J. Int' l L. (forthcoming).
53. Association Henri Capitant des amis de Law Culture juridique fran-çaise, les droits de tradition civiliste en question. a propos des rapports doino Business (2 Vols, 2006) ;
54. see Bénédicte Fauvarque-Cosson & Anne-Julie Kerhuel, Is Law an Economic Contest ? French Reactions to the Doing Business World Bank Reports and Economic Analysis of the Law, 57 Am. J. Comp. L. 811, 820-24 (2009).
55. Http://www.gip-recherche-justice.fr/aed.htm.
56. An exception is Ménard & du Marais, infra note 45;
57. published in an earlier version in New Frontiers of Law and Economics. First International Scientific Conference on Law and Economics at the University of St. Gallen 7 (2006).
58. Very critically Christoph Kern, Justice between Simplification and Formalism (2007) ;
59. Christoph Kern, Die Doing-Business-Reports der Weltbank - fragwürdige Quantifizierung rechtlicher Qualität?, 64 Juristenzeitung 498 (2009) ;
60. somewhat more positive is Mathias M. Siems, What Does not Work in Comparing Securities Laws, A Critique on La Porta et al.'s Methodology, Int'l Comp. & Com. L. Rev. 300 (2005) ;
61. Mathias M. Siems, Numerical Comparative Law-Do we Need Statistical Evidence in Law in Order to Reduce Complexity?, 13 Card. J. Int. Comp. L. 521 (2006) ;
62. Siems, supra note 5.
63. See England and Wales: The Jurisdiction of Choice (2008), available at http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/documents/downloads/jurisdiction-of-choice- brochure. pdf;
64. Law-Made in Germany (2008), available at http://www.lawmadeingermany.de/ Law-Made-in-Germany.pdf;
65. see also Otfried Höffe, Die Alte Welt im Recht, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 May 2009, 71;
66. Horst Eidenmüller, Recht als Produkt, 64 Juristenzeitung 641 (2009).
67. World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), Doing Business: An Independent Evaluation. Taking the Measure of the World Bank-IFC Doing Business Indicators (2008).
68. Id. at 33-34, 52.
69. Id. at 18-19, 52, 61-66.
70. Id. at 24-26, 69-75.
71. World Bank Independent Evaluation Group, supra note 34, at 26.
72. Http://www.doingbusiness.org/MethodologySurveys/MethodologyNote.aspx
73. criticized as insufficient by Benito Arruņada How Doing Business Jeopardizes Institutional Reform (2008), available at http://ssrn. com/abstract=ll43312. For earlier changes to the method
74. see http://www.domgbusmess.org/MethodologySurveys/MethodologyNoteArchive. aspx.
75. Revisions to the EWI Indicator, available at http://www.doingbusiness. org/documents/EWI-revisions.pdf.
76. See now Doing Business 2010-Reforming Through Difficult Times.
77. For an analysis still very much in tune with deregulation
78. see Simeon Djankov & Rita Ramalho, Employment Laws in Developing Countries, 37 J. Comp. Econ. 3 (2009).
79. Cf. Joshua C. Hall & Peter T. Leeson, Good for the Goose, Bad for the Gander: International Labor Standards and Comparative Development, 28 J. Labor Research 658 (2007).
80. Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, as quoted in Nicholas Thompson, Common Denominator, Legal Affairs Jan./Feb. 2005, available at http://www.legalaffairs. org/issues/January-February-2005/feature-thompson-janfeb05.msp.
81. La Porta et al., Law and Finance, supra note 6, at 1140, focus on enforcement because "a strong system of legal enforcement could substitute for weak rules, since active and well-functioning courts can step in and rescue investors abused by the management." However, in that study, they only look generally at the strength of the rule of law and similar macrocomparative aspects, not at the specific enforcement of the particular legal rules under review.
82. Claude Ménard & Bertrand du Marais, Can we Rank Legal Systems According to their Economic Efficiency?, 26 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol'y 55, 72-75 (2008) ;
83. see generally Mathias Reimann, The Progress and Failure of Comparative Law in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century, 50 Am. J. Comp. L. 671, at 675-76, 679-80 (2002).
84. See already David Campbell & Sol Piciotto, Exploring the Interaction between Law and Economics: The Limits of Formalism, 18 Leg. Stud. 249, 262-66 (1998).
85. La Porta et al., supra note 17, at 307.
86. Cf. Curtis J. Milhaupt & Katharina Pistor, Law & Capitalism: What Corporate Crises Reveal about Legal Systems and Economic Development around the World 210-12 (2008).
87. See Das BGB im Wandel der Epochen (Uwe Diederichsen & Wolfgang Sellert eds., 2002) ;
88. Joachim Rückert, Das BGB und seine Prinzipien: Aufgabe, Lösung und Erfolg, in I Historisch-Kritischer Kommentar zum BGB 34 (2003).
89. Michaels, supra note 7, at 354 with references.
90. See Ralf Michaels, The Second Wave of Comparative Law and Economics?, 59 U. Toronto L. J. 197, 199 (2009) with references.
91. Henry Hansmann & Ugo Mattei, The Functions of Trust Law: A Comparative Legal and Economic Analysis, 73 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 434 (1998).
92. Hein Kötz, Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts. Recent Developments in Europe from a Comparative and Economic Perspective, in Festskrift til Ole Lando 203 (Lynge Andersen ed., 1997). The basis for the least-cost risk avoider and least-cost risk insurer considerations is Guido Calabresi, The Cost of Accidents (1970).
93. Aristides N. Hatzis, Civil Contract Law and Economic Reasoning-An Unlikely Pair?, in The architecture of European Codes and Contract Law 159, 175 (Stefan Grundmann & Martin Schauer eds., 2006).
94. See, most recently, Richard Hyland, Gifts-A Study in Comparative Law 69-73 (2009).
95. Mathias Siems & Simon Deakin, Comparative Law and Finance: Past, Present and Future Research 5, 7 (2009), available at ssrn. com/abstract= 1428247.
96. Markus Berndt, Global Differences in Corporate Governance Systems (2002)
97. cited after Siems & Deakin, id, at 6.
98. Michaels, supra note 50, at 205-07, drawing on R. C. van Caenegem, Judges, Legislators and Professors: Chapters in European Legal History (1987).
99. Armour et al., supra note 16.
100. Locus classicus is Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge: Fact and Law in Comparative Perspective, in Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology 167 (1983).
101. Michaels, supra note 7, at 364-65.
102. Simeon Djankov et al., Debt Enforcement Around the World, 116 J. Pol. Econ. 1105, 1106 (2008).
103. The focus on cases characterizes also the "autopsies" method used by Milhaupt & Pistor, supra note 47, at 8-11, 45-46.
104. Formation of Contracts: A Study of the Common Core of Legal Systems (Rudolf B. Schlesinger ed., 1968).
105. Http://www.common-core.org.
106. Ugo Mattei, Comparative Law and Economics 95-99 (1997).
107. Ulrich Drobnig, Memorial Address for Rudolf Schlesinger: Delivered at the University of Trento Law School, 21 Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 765, 769 (1998).
108. David Kennedy, The Methods and the Politics, in Comparative Legal Studies: Traditions and Transitions 345, 351-52 (Pierre Legrand & Roderick Munday eds., 2003).
109. See Spamann, supra note 11, at 804-06.
110. E.g., Mathias Siems, Legal Origins: Reconciling Law & Finance and Comparative Law, 52 McGill L. J. 55, 65-70 (2007). Indeed, the CIA World Factbook that LLSV used can hardly be called a typical comparative law source.
111. Esin Örücü, A General View of 'Legal Families' and of 'Mixing Systems, ' in Comparative Law: A Handbook 169, 177 (Esin Örücü & David Nelken eds., 2007).
112. An extensive literature looks at the influence of U. S. law, though rarely with an emphasis on its role as a common law system. For a brief survey with references
113. see Ralf Michaels, American Law (United States), in Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law 66, 73-74 (Jan Smits ed., 2006).
114. A telling example is Donald Horowitz, The Qur'an and the Common Law: Islamic Law Reform and the Theory of Legal Change (pts. 1 & 2), 42 Am. J. Comp. L. 233, 543 (1994).
115. Reinhard Zimmermann, Der europäische Charakter des englischen Rechts: Historische Verbindungen zwischen civil law und common law, 1 ZEuP 4 (1993) ;
116. James Gordley, Common law und civil law: eine überholte Unterscheidung, 1 ZEuP 498 (1993).
117. But see Pierre Legrand, The Same and the Different, in Comparative Legal Studies, supra note 66, at 240.
118. Detlev Vagts, Comparative Company Law-The New Wave, in Festschrift für Jean Nicolas Druey zum 65. Geburtstag 595, 599 (2003).
119. See only Oscar G. Chase et al., Civil Litigation in Comparative Context (2007).
120. Supra, at 769.
121. Gillian Hadfield, The Levers of Legal Design, 36 J. Comp. Econ. 43 (2008) ;
122. Bernd Hayo & Stefan Voigt, Explaining de facto Judicial Independence, 27 Int'l Rev. Law & Econ. 269 (2007) ;
123. Bernd Hayo & Stefan Voigt, The Relevance of Judicial Procedure for Economic Growth, 27 Int'l Rev. L. & Econ. 269 (2007).
124. This year's conference of the International Association of Procedural Law in Toronto was dedicated to the topic.
125. Similarly Siems, supra note 68, at 69.
126. See Zweigert & Kötz, supra note 7, at 73;
127. René David & John E. C. Brierley, Major Legal Systems in the World Today 21 (1985).
128. Zweigert & Kötz, supra note 7, at 66-67;
129. Jaako Husa, Classification of Legal Families Today. Is it Time for a Memorial Hymn?, 2004 Rev. Int. Dr. Comp. 11, 14-16 (2004).
130. Zweigert & Kotz, supra note 7, at 65-66.
131. Hein Kötz, Abschied von der Rechtskreislehre?, 6 ZEuP 495 (1998) ;
132. Hein Kötz, Rechtskreislehre, in II Handwörterbuch zum europäischen Privatrecht 1247, 1248 (Jürgen Basedow, Klaus Hopt, Reinhard Zimmermann eds., 2009), English translation forthcoming.
133. Compare La Porta et al., supra note 17, at 286-87
134. with Zweigert & Kotz, supra note 7, at 72.
135. La Porta et al., supra note 17, at 286.
136. Mirjan Damaska, The Faces of Justice and State Authority 12 (1986).
137. Similarly for legal families as Weberian ideal types Jaako Husa, Legal Families and Research in Comparative Law, Global Jurist Advances Vol. 1 Issue 3 Art. 4 (2001), available at http://works.bepress.com/jaakko-husa/l.
138. La Porta et al,. supra note 17, at 303-06.
139. Reimann, supra note 45 at 677-78 (2002) ;
140. H. Patrick Glenn, Comparative Legal Families and Comparative Legal Traditions, in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law, supra note 7, at 421, 437-39.
141. Pierre Legrand, Econocentrism, 59 U. Toronto L. J. 215 (2009). Legrand was not always so opposed to comparative law and economics;
142. see Pierre Legrand, Jr., Pre-Contractual Disclosure and Information: English and French Law Compared, 6 Ox. J. Leg. Stud. 322, 343-5 (1986).
143. Thus John Reitz, Legal Origins, Political Economy, and the Problem of Generalization, 57 Am. J. Comp. L. 847 (2009).
144. See discussion and references in H. Patrick Glenn, Aims of Comparative Law, in Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, supra note 70, at 57, 58-89.
145. Jan Smits, European Private Law: A Plea for a Spontaneous Legal Order, in European Integration and Law 55 (D. M. Curtin et al. eds., 2006).
146. Ogus, infra note 138.
147. See Eva-Maria Kieninger, Wettbewerb der Privatrechtsordnungen im Europaischen Binnenmarkt (2002).
148. Erin O'Hara & Larry E. Ribstein, The Law Market (2009) ;
149. cf. Milhaupt & Pistor, supra note 47, at 213 ("commodification of law") ;
150. Eidenmüller, supra note 33.
151. See supra 774-75.
152. Supra, 775.
153. See Nils Jansen, Comparative Law and Comparative Knowledge, in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law, supra note 7, at 305.
154. Michaels, supra note 7, at 374.
155. See Michaels, supra note 7, at 374-76.
156. See Bjørn Høyland et al., The Tyranny of International Index Rankings (2009), available at http://folk.uio.no/jornkho/ TyrannyIndexRankingsHoylandMoeneWillum sen. pdf. In the United States, a similar problem is known from the ranking of law schools, which appears to measure the objective quality of law schools and therefore creates strong incentives for law schools to improve rankings, not law schools.
157. See only Michael E. Solimine, Status Seeking and the Allure and Limits of Law School Rankings, 81 Ind. L. J. 299 (2006).
158. Cf. Jansen, supra note 96, at 312-14.
159. I ignore here critique of how accurate the data is;
160. see World Bank Independent Evaluation, supra note 34, at 13-17.
161. This is the core of the French critique against the Doing Business reports.
162. See Fauvarque-Cosson & Kerhuel, supra note 29.
163. Upendra Baxi, The Colonialist Heritage, in Legrand & Munday, supra note 66, at 59.
164. For English law
165. see B. H. McPherson, The Reception of English Law Abroad (2007) ; for French Law
166. see L'influence Internationale du droit français, Rapport du Conseil d'Etat (Oliver Dutheillet de Lamothe & Marie-Aimé Latournerie eds., 2001), available at http://www. Iadocumentationfrancaise.fr/rap ports-publics/014000702/index.shtml.
167. See Alan Watson, Society and Legal Change (2d ed. 2001).
168. See also, now, Holger Spamann, Contemporary Legal Transplants - Legal Families and the Diffusion of (Corporate) Law, 2009 (6) BYU L. Rev. (forthcoming, Dec. 2009).
169. David Berkowitz et al., The Transplant Effect, 51 Am. J. Comp. L. 163 (2003) ;
170. Milhaupt & Pistor, supra note 47, at 201-12.
171. Otto Kahn-Freund, On Uses and Misuses of Comparative Law, 37 Mod. L. Rev. 1, 12-13 (1974).
172. Cf. Sandra Fullerton Joireman, Inherited Legal Systems and Effective Rule of Law: Africa and the Colonial Legacy, 39 J. of Mod. Afr. Stud. 571, 579-81 (2001). However, for evidence that indirect rule colonies had higher rates of instability
173. see Matthew K. Lange, British Colonial Legacies and Political Development, 32 World Development 905 (2004).
174. E.g. David & Brierley, supra note 78, at 6-8;
175. Léontin-Jean Constantinesco, Rechtsvergleichung I-Einführung in die Rechtsvergleichung 371-73 (1971) ;
176. Zweigert & Kötz, supra note 7, at 16-20.
177. Shuya Hayashi, The Search of Knowledge. Some Perspectives in Legal Assistance in Developing Economies (unpublished paper, 2009).
178. See Milhaupt, supra note 4, last paragraph.
179. See Fauvarque-Cosson & Kerhuel, supra note 29.
180. Roger Cotterell, Comparative Law and Legal Culture, in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law, supra note 7, at 709;
181. David Nelken, Defining and Using the Concept of Legal Culture, in Comparative Law: A Handbook, supra note 69, at 109.
182. Ralf Michaels, Rechtskultur, in Handwörterbuch zum Europäischen Privatrecht, supra note 81 at 1249 (2009) ; English translation forthcoming.
183. Alain Bernard, Law and Economics, une science idiote?, 2008 Recueil Dalloz 2806.
184. Fauvarque-Cosson & Kerhuel, supra note 29, at 818-19.
185. Similarly Pierre Legrand, Book Review, 56 Cam. L. Rev. 638, 640 (1997) (but see now Legrand, supra note 87). More generally
186. see Eelke de Jong, Culture and Economics-On Values, Economics and International Business (2009).
187. Douglas North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance 36-45 (1990).
188. Anthony Ogus, The Economic Basis of Legal Culture: Networks and Monopolization, 22 Ox. J. of Legal Stud. 419 (2002).
189. See, especially, Amir Licht et al., Culture Rules: The Foundations of the Rule of Law and other Norms of Governance, 35 J. of Comp. Econ. 659 (2007).
190. Philippe Aghion et al., Regulation and Distrust, available at http://ssrn. com/abstract=1324264.
191. Of course, the economic approach itself represents a particular culture as well.
192. On this
193. see Vivian Grosswald Curran, Comparative Law and the Legal Origins Thesis: "[N]on scholae sed vitae discimus, " 57 Am. J. Comp. L. 863 (2009).
194. Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Path of the Law, 10 Harv. L. Rev. 459, at 469 (1897).
195. Mathias Siems, The End of Comparative Law, 2 J. Comp. L. 133 (2007) ;
196. see already Ralf Michaels, Im Westen nichts Neues, 66 RabelsZ 97, 112-15 (2002) ;
197. Reimann, supra note 45, at 685-90.
198. On European private law as a success story of comparative law, Reimann, supra note 45, at 690-95;
199. on the limited role of comparative law as only one of the factors in European private law, Reinhard Zimmermann, Comparative Law and the Europeanization of Private Law, in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law, supra note 7, at 539, 577-78;
200. Ralf Michaels, Rechtsvergleichung, in HandwOrterbuch zum europäischen Privatrecht, supra note 81, at 1260; English translation forthcoming.
201. Curran, supra note 123.
202. See the references in La Porta et al., supra note 17;
203. see also Kenneth Dam, The Law-Growth Nexus: The Rule of Law and Economic Development (2006).
204. For one such proposal
205. see Tony Lawson, Reorienting Economics (2003).
206. See Ralf Michaels, Economics of Law as Choice of Law, 71 L. & Contemp. Probs. 73 (2008).
207. Holmes, supra note 124.
208. Elmar Wadle, Einhundert Jahre Rechtsvergleichende Gesellschaften in Deutschland 32-42 (1994).
209. Franz Bernhöft, Unser Zweck, 1 Jahrbuch der Internationalen Vereinigung für vergleichende rechtswissenschaft und Volkswirtschaftslehre zu Berlin 1, 12 (1895).
210. Ron Harris, The Uses of History in Law and Economics, 4 Theoretical Inquiries in Law 659, 666-74 (2004).
211. But see the occasional comparative remarks in Steven Shavell, Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law 55, 164-65, 204-05, 223, 243, 247, 249, 267 (2004).
212. Christian Kirchner, The Difficult Reception of Law and Economics in Germany, 11 International Review of Law and Economics 277 (1991) ;
213. Viktor Winkler, Review Essay-Some Realism about Rationalism: Economic Analysis of Law in Germany, 6 German L. J. 1033 (2005) ;
214. Oren Gazal-Ayal, Economic Analysis of Law in North America, Europe and Israel, 3 Rev. L. & Econ. Issue 2 article 11 (2007), available at http://www.bepress.com/rle/vol3/iss2/artll;
215. Kristoffel Grechenig & Martin Gelter, The Transatlantic Divergence in Legal Thought: American Law and Economics vs. German Doctrinalism, 31 Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 295 (2008) ;
216. Nuno Garoupa & Thomas S. Ulen The Market for Legal Innovation: Law and Economics in Europe and the United States, 59 Ala. L. Rev. 1555 (2008).
217. E.g. Roland Kirstein, Law and Economics in Germany, in I Encyclopedia of Law and Economics 160 (B. Bouckaert & G. de Geest eds., 2000), available at http://encyclo.findlaw.com/0330book.pdf.
218. But see Viktor Winkler, Okonomische Analyse des Rechts im 19. Jahrhundert: Victor Matajas "Recht des Schadensersatzes" revisited, 26 Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 262 (2004).
219. One exception is now Ugo A. Mattei et al., Schlesinger's Comparative Law. Cases-Text-Materials 13-31, 267 (7th ed. 2009).
220. Florian Faust, Comparative Law and Economic Analysis of Law, in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law, supra note 7, at 837;
221. Raffaele Caterina, Comparative Law and Economics, in Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, supra note 70, at 161;
222. Anthony Ogus, The Economic Approach: Competition between Legal Systems, in Comparative Law: A Handbook, supra note 69, at 155 (Esin Örücü & David Nelken eds., 2007).
223. See also Ugo Mattei & Fabrizio Cafaggi, Comparative Law and Economics, in I The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law 346 (P. Newman ed., 1998) ;
224. Ugo A. Mattei, Luisa Antoniolli and Andrea Rossato, Comparative Law and Economics, in I Encyclopedia of Law and Economics, supra note 136, at 505, available at http://encyclo.findlaw.com/0560book.pdf.
225. Comparative Law and Economics (Gerrit De Geest & Roger Van den Bergh eds., 3 Vols., 2004).
226. Armour et al., supra note 16.
227. Kevin E. Davis & Michael B. Kruse, Taking the Measure of Law: The Case of the Doing Business Project, 32 L. & Social Inq. 1095, 1104-05 (2007) ;
228. Michaels, supra note 50, at 210-11.
229. Gillian Hadfield, The Strategy of Methodology: The Virtues of Being Reductionist for Comparative Law, 59 U. Toronto L. J. 223 (2009).