The republic of beliefs: a new approach to ?law and economics?

No 7259, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: The discipline of law and economics deals with wide-ranging topics, from competition and environmental policy to crime control, and has been instrumental in determining how an economy performs. Yet its success has fallen short of its potential. The discipline?s shortcomings are nowhere as visible as in developing economies, where a common refrain is how the law looks good on paper but does not get implemented. This paper articulates a methodological flaw that underlies much of contemporary law and economics, and argues that there is an intimate connection between human beliefs and expectations, on the one hand, and the effectiveness of the law, on the other. I propose a new approach to law and economics that is rooted in game theory and rectifies the flaw. It is argued that this approach can open up new areas of research and be marshalled to address some of the more pressing policy challenges of our time.

Keywords: Gender and Law; Labor Policies; Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures; Parliamentary Government; Legal Products (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-05-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSC ... w0and0economics0.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7259

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().