Category Archives: Law and Development
Gunther Teubner and Qi Chunyi, ‘Multiple Modernities: An Alternative to Western Economists’ Recommendations for China’s Private Law’
Abstract: The article criticizes the recent World Bank report, “China 2030” which formulates a new development strategy for China to rebalance the role of government and market, private sector and society. The report deals explicitly with the role that private law should play as means of economic modernization. The main thesis of this article is […]
Garoupa and Morriss, ‘The Fable of the Codes: The Efficiency of the Common Law, Legal Origins, and Codification Movements’
Abstract: The superior efficiency of the common law has long been a staple of the law and economics literature. Generalizing from this claim, the legal origins literature uses cross-country empirical research in an attempt to demonstrate this superiority by examining economic growth rates and the presence of common-law legal systems. We argue that this literature […]
Voigt and Gutmann, ‘Turning Cheap Talk into Economic Growth: On the Relationship Between Property Rights and Judicial Independence’
Abstract: Among economists, the view that precisely defined and reliably enforced property rights are generally conducive to economic growth has been quasi-unanimous. But recently, some authors have argued that the relationship is more complex than previously acknowledged: property rights reforms might, for example, not per se lead to increases in observed growth rates. This paper […]
Jean-François Gaudreault-DesBiens, ‘On the Relative Pertinence of the Civil Law/Common Law Dichotomy When Reflecting on the Relationship between Comparative Law, Development Law and Living Law. Some Observations in the African Context’
Abstract: This article examines the pertinence of resorting to the civil law/common law dichotomy in the context of the use of legal comparison to evaluate the relative ‘performance’ of states in the development field. It accordingly looks into the growing importance of neo-institutionalist analysis in law and development economics, in order to conclude that if […]
Deepa Badrinarayana, ‘The Jewel in the Crown: Can India’s Strict Liability Doctrine Deepen Our Understanding of Tort Law Theory?’
Abstract: The evolution of tort law in former British colonies is not only fascinating; it also holds clues into the age old question of whether law or any discrete area of law can be universal. The exploration into doctrinal divergences and convergences is part of a larger quest: to capture the theoretical underpinnings of tort […]
Banerjee, Bose and Rath, ‘Explaining the Effect of Financial Development on the Quality of Property Rights’
Abstract: Recent empirical evidence suggests that financial development can catalyze property rights reforms, and for such effect to materialize financial development must cross a threshold. This paper offers a theory of financial markets to explain both stylized facts defining the relationship. The explanation is based on a simple trade-off between the costs and the benefits […]
Qiao and Upham, ‘China’s Changing Property Law Landscape’
Abstract: This chapter provides an outline of the changing Chinese land regime, including the past, present, and future of land expropriation, small or informal property rights, and rural land reform. We argue that the evolution of Chinese land law exhibits three characteristics. First, law serves as the final confirmation of policy reforms, rather than the […]
Lai, Chau and Lorne, ‘“Unclear” Initial Delineation of Property Boundaries and the Third Coase Theorem’
Abstract: This interdisciplinary study, which references previous research on the evolution of land law and real world examples of land market operating with unclear property boundaries, demonstrates that Ronald Coase’s argument that delimitation of property rights is a prelude to market transaction applies to urban development, in which certitude in initial property boundaries in geodetic […]
‘Planning law is not property: Sea level change in Queensland’
“Queensland’s Infrastructure Minister, Jeff Seeney, has ordered a local government authority to remove from its regional plan any references to climate change induced sea level rise. The stated objective of this directive is ‘to ensure residents’ rights to build and develop their properties were maintained and not restricted by their local council’. The Minister confirmed […]
Shitong Qiao, ‘Planting Houses in Shenzhen: A Real Estate Market Without Legal Titles’
Abstract: Can a real estate market operate without legal titles? The answer has conventionally been no. But in Shenzhen, the iconic city of China’s market economy, an opposite phenomenon exists: half of the buildings within the city, which has 1,993 square kilometers of land and over 10 million people, have no legal titles and have […]