Private Law Theory

In their recent paper ‘Contemporary Law and Economics’, Adam Chilton, Joshua Macey, and Mila Versteeg argue that LPE critics of the Law and Economics movement are attacking a straw man. The authors claim that although Law and Economics once stressed efficiency goals, which they defined as ‘wealth maximization’, contemporary practitioners simply endorse the use of modern empirical social science methods, primarily econometrics, to study law and legal institutions. The L&E movement has grown, they suggest, ‘by embracing and accepting critiques that were levied against it’. Indeed, contemporary Law and Economics, they maintain, routinely addresses concerns about equity and the dangers of concentrated power, the very problems that LPE critics claim Law and Economics overlooks or exacerbates … (more)

[Darren Bush, Mark Glick and Gabriel A Lozada, LPE Project, 7 October 2026]