THE THE RISE AND FALL OF LAW AND ECONOMICS

AN ESSAY FOR JUDGE GUIDO CALABRESI

Abstract

In this Essay I use law and economics and efficiency reasoning in the law as a proxy in attempting to predict the fate of U.S. intellectual leadership in the law. I argue that law and economics has significantly contributed to the attainment of worldwide hegemony by U.S. legal scholarship, mostly thanks to early work, such as that pioneered by Guido Calabresi in the 1960s and 70s. I claim that later aspects of the style and politics of law and economics have consumed much of its early capital of prestige, and that the decline phase of the economic approach in legal reasoning is well on its way. I further argue that the fall of law and economics, due to its overformalism, parochialism, and western-centrism, allows a more general prediction on the beginning of a decline phase of U.S. legal scholarship in the global scenario.