Private Law Theory

ABSTRACT
This Article proposes an analytical framework for defining the contours of the emerging field of law and macroeconomics drawing on the International Monetary Fund’s principle of ‘macro-criticality’. Such a framework can help steer scholarly debate toward a clearer understanding of the relationship between law and the economy and inform policymaking within that domain. In its native context, the macro-criticality principle limits the IMF’s jurisdiction to policy areas that are critical for member countries’ domestic and external stability. The IMF’s approach distinguishes between a core set of macrocritical policies and other non-core policies that are contextually macrocritical. Over time, the IMF has refined its approach for determining whether and when a policy area falls within the non-core category. Recently such policies have included those related to corruption, climate change, and gender equality. Translating the IMF’s framework to the field of law and macroeconomics suggests that the field has a core subset of topics that include legal and institutional aspects of the main levers that impact the macro-economy, like trade, monetary, exchange rate, financial regulation, and fiscal policies. Beyond this core, the field includes legal and institutional issues and policy areas that can significantly impact macroeconomic performance, even under specific narrow circumstances or at the margins. This framework provides a systematic analytical approach to defining the scope and contours of the field. It also underscores that the field provides an academic home for a number of topics that tend to be lost in the existing array of other legal academic fields and helps draw attention to the IMF itself as an international regulator of domestic macroeconomic policies and performance.

Aggarwal, Nikita and Feibelman, Adam, Defining the Field of Law and Macroeconomics: A Framework from International Monetary Law (January 31, 2025).