This article develops an economic theory of expressive law. By expressing social values, law can tip a system of social norms into a new equilibrium. This process can create or destroy a social norm without changing individual values. In addition, law can change the individual values of rational people. Internalizing a social norm is a moral commitment that attaches a psychological penalty to a...

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For decades, scholars in law and development have studied interactions and dynamics among institutions, legal rules, and development. However, a comprehensive analytical framework in law and development, one which assesses the impact of law, legal frameworks, and institutions (LFIs) on economic development in key areas, is yet to be developed. This is partly because existing law and development...

Although a millennium ago the Middle East was not an economic laggard, by the 18 century it exhibited clear signs of economic backwardness. The reason for this transformation is that certain components of the region’s legal infrastructure stagnated as their Western counterparts gave way to the modern economy. Among the institutions that generated evolutionary bottlenecks are the Islamic law of ...

Social institutions impact growth by redistributing resources to the young, the poor, the old, and the sick. This paper empirically substantiates that England’s premodern social institutions–specifically, the Old Poor Law (1601-1834)–contributed to her transition to the modern economy. It reduced violent, innovation-inhibiting reactions from the economic agents threatened by economic change. Th...

Author Contact: Wing Yuk, P.O. Box 37063 RPO, Vancouver, BC, Canada V5P 4W7. Tel: +1-604-782-8081; email: [email protected] Abstract This study considers the long-run relationship between government expenditure and economic growth for the United Kingdom over the period 1830 to 1993. The causality analysis allows for the effects of exports, and for the presence of complex structural breaks i...

Public sector bodies hold a significant amount of data that might be of potential interest to citizens and businesses. However the re-use potential of this data is still largely untapped because the data is not always published in a way that would allow its easy discovery, understanding and re-use. Open Government Data (OGD) initiatives aim at increasing availability of machine-readable data pr...

As the largest energy consumer and carbon emitter, China has made substantial efforts to improve energy efficiency for decrease energy consumption, while the energy rebound effect determines its effectiveness. The embodied energy consumption of construction projects accounted for nearly one-sixth of the total economy's energy consumption in China. This paper is based on the logical relationship...

The economic approach to bankruptcy envisions bankruptcy law as a set of rules approximating the contractual terms to which, at the time credit is extended, a creditor and debtor would agree should govern in the event of the debtor's insolvency. Some traditional bankruptcy scholars criticize the economic approach for what they see as its failure to advance goals and values which they deem neces...