Canvassing a realistic Cathedral with efficiency amongst its pillars

The idea that allocative efficiency is about total welfare is at the core of the economic approach to law and, more generally, of the Twentieth-Century Synthesis that Law and Political Economy intends to set aside. Indeed, this idea causes problems in the debates where efficiency is most relevant, namely contract, antitrust, and consumer law, in Europe and elsewhere. The concept of the legal-economic nexus gives us an insightful perspective. In particular, given its place at the core of the legal-economic nexus, allocative efficiency must be formulated in a way that fits with both economic theory and legal practice. Accordingly, this book makes explicit and relies upon the Samuels-Calabresi Theorem: identify the concepts that fit with both legal and economic reasoning about the legal-economic nexus. An overview of the rest of the book is given.