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On the Benefits and Costs of Legal Expertise: Adjudication in Ancient Athens

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  • Fleck Robert K.

    (Clemson University)

  • Hanssen F. Andrew

    (Clemson University)

Abstract

Legal expertise permits detailed laws to be written and enforced, but individuals with expertise may employ their special knowledge to skew decisions in privately beneficial directions. We illustrate this tradeoff in a simple model, which we use to guide our analysis of the legal system in ancient Athens. Rather than accepting the costs of expertise in return for the benefits, as do most modern societies, the Athenians designed a legal system that banned professional legal experts. And this was not because Athenian society was simple: The Athenians employed sophisticated contingent contracts and litigated frequently (to the point that the law courts featured prominently in several famous comedies). Furthermore, the Athenians recognized that forgoing expertise was costly, and where the cost was particularly high, designed institutions that made use of expertise already existing in society, employed knowledgeable individuals who were unable to engage in significant rent-seeking, or increased the private returns to collecting publicly beneficial information. Although the Athenian legal system differs in many ways from modern legal systems, it nonetheless functioned very effectively. Investigation of the Athenian system highlights how important it is for institutional designers to consider legal institutions as a bundle, whose pieces must complement one another.

Suggested Citation

  • Fleck Robert K. & Hanssen F. Andrew, 2012. "On the Benefits and Costs of Legal Expertise: Adjudication in Ancient Athens," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 367-399, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:rlecon:v:8:y:2012:i:2:n:2
    DOI: 10.1515/1555-5879.1589
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Bryan C. McCannon, 2017. "Who pays taxes? Liturgies and the Antidosis procedure in Ancient Athens," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 407-421, December.
    2. Tridimas, George, 2015. "War, disenfranchisement and the fall of the ancient Athenian democracy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 102-117.
    3. Bryan C. McCannon, 2018. "Arbitration in classical Athens," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 413-423, December.
    4. Robert K. Fleck & F. Andrew Hanssen, 2018. "Path dependence and transitions from tyranny to democracy: evidence from ancient Greece," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 371-388, December.
    5. Gradstein, Mark & Kaganovich, Michael, 2019. "Legislative restraints in corporate bailout design," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 337-350.
    6. Federica Carugati & Josiah Ober & Barry R. Weingast, 2019. "Is development uniquely modern? Ancient Athens on the doorstep," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 29-47, October.

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