Economics and the Law: From Posner to Postmodernism and Beyond, 2nd Ed

Journal of Economic Issues, Dec, 2007 by Daniel T. Ostas

Economics and the Law: From Posner to Postmodernism and Beyond, 2nd Ed., by Nicholas Mercuro & Steven G. Medema. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 2006. Paper: ISBN 0 691 12572 4, $35.00. 385 pages.

This is a second edition of a highly successful book that surveys the various scholarly approaches to the topic of law and economics. The first edition, published in 1997, offered separate discussions of the Chicago School, Public Choice Theory, Institutional Law and Economics, New Institutional Law and Economics, the New Haven School, and Modern Civic Republicanism. The current edition retains and updates each of these topics. The second edition also differs from the first by deleting a discussion of the Critical Legal Studies movement and by adding a new chapter on scholarship addressing the relevance of social norms on understanding the law and economic interface.

Written by law professor Nicholas Mercuro and economics professor Steven G. Medema, the second edition once again provides a very useful and thorough reference to the field. The authors offer a painstakingly fair treatment of the competing schools of thought complete with citations to seminal works. Throughout the book, the authors emphasize positive contributions from each tradition. They also display a remarkable fluency in the literature. They write well and provide numerous examples to clarify the workings of each approach. In short, the book provides an excellent introduction to the central themes and overarching approaches to the interrelated topics of law and economics.

The organization of the text immediately dispels any notion that the once dominant Chicago approach defines the topic of law and economics. Scholarly inquiries into the field trace at least to Adam Smith. The Chicago approach, exemplified by Judge Richard A. Posner's 1973 first edition of Economic Analysis of Law, appears as but one of a series of approaches to the topic. Precursors to Chicago included the institutionalism of Commons, Veblen, and Ayres, a tradition that has been continued and expanded most notably by Professor Warren J. Samuels. Movements that postdate Chicago include the wedding of the law and society insights into the realm of economic analysis and the "New Chicago School" championed most notably by Professor Cass R. Sunstein.

The book is unabashedly a recounting of prior scholarship. Hence, for a reader well versed in a given area, there is little new. Nonetheless, if a well-versed reader needs to find a quick citation to a topic or a brief discussion of a concept one is trying to recall, then one will find it here. The book is very well organized and all the familiar material is present. In this sense, the book provides an excellent reference to oft-cited, works even for seasoned scholars.

Perhaps the chief value of the book is to provide an introduction to topics to which the reader is relatively unfamiliar. The topic of law and economics has interfaces with political science, sociology, anthropology and other social sciences. It impacts legislation, administrative rules, and court opinions. Within this broad context, one is likely to find something new and unfamiliar. For example, this reviewer found the material on Civic Republicanism to be particularly interesting. The republican movement offers a counterbalance to Public Choice Theory. Whereas Public Choice offers a somewhat cynical view of public actors solely interested in self gain, the republican movement emphasizes public virtue and suggests that public officials often seek the common good. As with scores of other topics, Mercuro and Medema map the differences between the two approaches complete with histories of the intellectual movements and clear expositions of the competing views.

Daniel T. Ostas

University of Oklahoma