Abstract This paper analyzes the intellectual foundations and evolution of the European Journal of Law and Economics (EJLE) over its first thirty years. We first reconstruct the European intellectual traditions underlying law and economics—Enlightenment thought, the German Historical School, ordoliberalism, and comparative institutional analysis—and their role in shaping the journal’s founding mission. We then complement this historical analysis with a comprehensive, data-driven study of all EJLE articles published since 1994. Using topic modeling (BERTopic) and abstract-similarity clustering, we document the journal’s thematic structure, its evolution over time, and changes in authorship, collaboration, and geographic composition. The results highlight both continuity and rebalancing within a methodologically plural and institutionally grounded research agenda.

Abstract In many countries, the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccines was accompanied by vaccine passports. In Sweden, anyone aged 18 or above was required to have taken two doses of an approved vaccine to visit any venues with a capacity of a hundred guests or more. This article compares Swedish 17- and 18-year-olds in difference-in-difference and event-study analyses. These indicate that the vaccine passports produced an effect that lasted around four or five weeks and led to at most approximately one per cent of unvaccinated 18-year-olds getting vaccinated. The vaccines were not sterilizing but plausibly lowered the reproductive value and thereby slowed the spread of the virus. However, with at most a negligible effect on take-up, there is little to recommend the vaccine passports.

Abstract This paper analyzes the effectiveness of public enforcement in combating piracy and promoting innovation. Our analysis emphasizes that the design of enforcement policy must take into account not only the intensity of enforcement but also its form and structural constraints. We show that under a social welfare–maximizing regime, optimal enforcement always eliminates piracy but cannot fully prevent a decline in innovation quality as piracy rises. When this decline significantly reduces welfare, the government intensifies enforcement to block piracy and restore monopoly outcomes. However, when enforcement is constrained by a proportional fine structure, the government optimally tolerates some piracy, with no monitoring as the best response. Strengthening fines reduces piracy, but does not eliminate it, until a threshold is reached where the optimal enforcement restores the monopoly outcome, often at a lower piracy level than under welfare maximization. We also find that private enforcement yields outcomes identical to public enforcement when the government pursues social welfare maximizing objective.

Abstract This paper explores the identity and contributions of the German Law and Economics Association (GLEA) within the broader European Law & Economics landscape. We examine GLEA’s distinctive features, its role in bridging economics and legal scholarship, and consider whether a unique “European” approach to law and economics exists.

Abstract This study investigates the Italian sex market and its current legislative framework, offering policy recommendations aimed at protecting sex workers from exploitation and preventing human trafficking. We compare alternative European regulatory models to identify their core components and adopt a trade-off framework to explicitly assess whose welfare would be affected by the proposed reform. Based on our analysis, we find that several stakeholders would benefit from the adoption of a hybrid legislative model that combines (i) regulation and licensing of sex services with (ii) a system of incentives and disincentives designed to guide both workers and clients toward the formal market. According to our budget impact analysis, if implemented in 2024, this policy reform could generate between €3.893 and €7.410 billion in income, with estimated tax revenues under a flat-rate regime would fall between €0.875 and €1.470 billion.

Abstract This article examines the long-run relationship between constitutional monarchy and economic growth using a panel of 37 countries from 1870 to 2018. Exploiting the staggered timing of regime transitions as a source of quasi-experimental variation, we reassess whether monarchies promote prosperity or merely survive because of it. The results suggest that pre-existing economic development, rather than monarchical institutions themselves, explains the persistence of constitutional monarchy. The apparent growth advantage of monarchies is concentrated among wealthier pre-war states, where fiscal capacity and institutional maturity sustained stability. In poorer settings, constitutional monarchies failed to generate lasting growth and were eventually replaced by republican regimes, which subsequently outperformed them. These findings imply that prosperity sustains monarchy, not the reverse, and that contemporary constitutional monarchies represent the historical survivors of economic success rather than its institutional cause.