Keywords
law & economics
Abstract
About half a century after the formation of the current of legal thinking called law & economics, it is evident that the application of instruments, ideas and concepts with which economic science operates in legal analysis and the evaluation of law based on its finalities and its economic challenges are a severe challenge for lawyers, even for those in common law systems.
Virtually challenged and, to the same extent, defended, deconstructed and reformulated, through the contribution of sociology, psychology and behavioural studies, the economic analysis of law has followed the developments that have marked the economic science of recent decades. It has finally managed to penetrate those legal systems and doctrines that have been refractory, by tradition, to any attempt of legal contamination, especially if it came from the Anglo-Saxon space.
The present study attempts to explore the origins and intellectual foundation of the economic analysis of law while presenting the main criticisms and reconsiderations of this influential current of thought by referring, on the one hand, to several applications of it, in property law, contracts and company law, and, on the other hand, to some of the main contributions which have marked the current in its evolution and which should be essential readings for the lawyer who, formed in a hyper-positivist legal system of education, seeks alternatives for understanding and deepening the law. In other words, the present study aims to contribute to the circulation of ideas and names that have lingered far too foreign to the Romanian jurist.