Abstract
In The Future of Law & Economics: Essays in Reform and Recollection,1 Professor Judge Guido Calabresi draws a fascinating picture of the intricate relationship between law and economics. Calabresi argues that not only is law influenced by economic analysis, but also the converse is true: law affects (and should affect) economic theory. In this essay, I review the book’s main ideas and express some thoughts about Calabresi’s arguments and about the field of law and economics and its future. Calabresi’s book begins by distinguishing two approaches regarding the interaction between law and economics. The first approach, “Economic Analysis of Law” (EAL), which Calabresi identifies with Jeremy Bentham, uses economic theory to evaluate critically the legal reality. This enquiry is undertaken from an external, Archimedean point of view—the standpoint of economics. Bentham evaluated legal practices according to their fit to utilitarianism and dismissed what did not correspond as “nonsense upon stilts.”2 Similarly, economic analysts of law look at the legal world from the external standpoint of economic theory; if they find a certain law to be ill suited from this perspective, they proclaim it to be “irrational” and call for a reform.
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