IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/icr/wpicer/41-2007.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

It was the rule of law. Will it be the rule of judges?

Author

Listed:
  • Enrico Colombatto

Abstract

The Gregorian revolution introduced the rule of law in the West and created necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for growth to take off. This paper analyzes some of the consequences provoked by the evolution in the notion of the rule of law – from being based upon God-given natural law to relying on popular sovereignty. It concludes that the importance of the rule of law, of the differences in legal systems and of constitutions is probably overstated. It suggests that the successor to the medieval notion of the rule of law is in fact a mix of procedural political correctness, social preferences and efficiency. As a result the main player becomes the judiciary, whose behavioral patterns should become the object of further analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • Enrico Colombatto, 2007. "It was the rule of law. Will it be the rule of judges?," ICER Working Papers 41-2007, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:icr:wpicer:41-2007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bemservizi.unito.it/repec/icr/wp2007/ICERwp41-07.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marcel van Meerhaeghe, 2006. "Bismarck and the social question," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 33(4), pages 284-301, September.
    2. Scully, Gerald W, 1988. "The Institutional Framework and Economic Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(3), pages 652-662, June.
    3. Editor, 2007. "Contents," The Journal of Comparative Economic Studies (JCES), The Japanese Society for Comparative Economic Studies (JSCES), vol. 3, pages 0, December.
    4. Abramovitz, Moses, 1986. "Catching Up, Forging Ahead, and Falling Behind," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(2), pages 385-406, June.
    5. Hoppe, Hans-Hermann, 1994. "F. A. Hayek on Government and Social Evolution: A Critique," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 67-93.
    6. Stefan Voigt, 2005. "The Economic Effects of Judicial Accountability. Some Preliminary Insights," ICER Working Papers 19-2005, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    7. Mahoney, Paul G, 2001. "The Common Law and Economic Growth: Hayek Might Be Right," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(2), pages 503-525, Part I Ju.
    8. Osborne, Evan, 1999. "Courts as Casinos? An Empirical Investigation of Randomness and Efficiency in Civil Litigation," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 187-203, January.
    9. de Jasay, Anthony, 1996. "Hayek: Some Missing Pieces," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 107-118.
    10. Kuznets, Simon, 1973. "Modern Economic Growth: Findings and Reflections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 247-258, June.
    11. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226320625 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Hoff, Karla & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 2005. "The creation of the rule of law and the legitimacy of property rights : the political and economic consequences of a corrupt privatization," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3779, The World Bank.
    13. Angus Maddison, 2005. "Measuring And Interpreting World Economic Performance 1500–2001," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 51(1), pages 1-35, March.
    14. Judit Kapás & Pál Czeglédi, 2007. "Economic Freedom: Theory First, Empiricism After," ICER Working Papers 10-2007, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Silvestri, Paolo, 2012. "The ideal of good government in Luigi Einaudi's Thought and Life: Between Law and Freedom," MPRA Paper 55351, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rok Spruk & Mitja Kovac, 2018. "Inefficient Growth," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 9(2).
    2. Shu Yu & Takaya Yuizono, 2021. "A Proximity Approach to Understanding University-Industry Collaborations for Innovation in Non-Local Context: Exploring the Catch-Up Role of Regional Absorptive Capacity," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-19, March.
    3. Wei Yu & Myles S. Wallace & Clark Nardinelli, 1991. "State Growth Rates: Taxes, Spending, and Catching Up," Public Finance Review, , vol. 19(1), pages 80-93, January.
    4. Enrico Colombatto, 2014. "Hayek and economic policy (the Austrian road to the third way)," Chapters, in: Roger W. Garrison & Norman Barry (ed.), Elgar Companion to Hayekian Economics, chapter 15, pages 343-363, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Cuffaro , Miranda & Cracolici, Maria Francesca & Nijkamp, Peter, 2006. "Economic convergence vs. socio-economic convergence in space," Serie Research Memoranda 0020, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    6. E. Colombatto, 2006. "On economic growth and development," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 19(4), pages 243-260, December.
    7. Gurgul, Henryk & Lach, Łukasz, 2012. "Political instability and economic growth: Evidence from two decades of transition in CEE," MPRA Paper 37792, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Douglas A. Irwin, 2014. "Adam Smith's "Tolerable Administration of Justice" and the Wealth of Nations," NBER Working Papers 20636, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Crafts, Nicholas & O’Rourke, Kevin Hjortshøj, 2014. "Twentieth Century Growth*This research has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement no. 249546.," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 6, pages 263-346, Elsevier.
    10. Davis, Lewis S., 2008. "Scale effects in growth: A role for institutions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 403-419, May.
    11. Alessandro Nuvolari & Emanuele Russo, 2019. "Technical progress and structural change: a long-term view," LEM Papers Series 2019/17, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    12. Douglas A. Irwin, 2020. "Adam Smith's “tolerable administration of justice” and the Wealth of Nations," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 67(3), pages 231-247, July.
    13. Palacio, Andrés, 2018. "The Social Capability Index and Income Convergence," Lund Papers in Economic History 184, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    14. Berger, Johannes, 2006. "Warum sind einige Länder so viel reicher als andere? Zur institutionellen Erklärung von Entwicklungsunterschieden," MPIfG Discussion Paper 06/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    15. Agnieszka Głodowska & Bożena Pera, 2019. "On the Relationship between Economic Integration, Business Environment and Real Convergence: The Experience of the CEE Countries," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-19, June.
    16. Andreas Reinstaller, 2013. "An Evolutionary View on Social Innovation and the Process of Economic Change. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 43," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 47018.
    17. Michael Best, 2012. "The Obscure Firm in the Wealth of Nations," Chapters, in: Michael Dietrich & Jackie Krafft (ed.), Handbook on the Economics and Theory of the Firm, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Jacob A Jordaan, 2017. "Producer firms, technology diffusion and spillovers to local suppliers: Examining the effects of Foreign Direct Investment and the technology gap," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(12), pages 2718-2738, December.
    19. Andreoni, Antonio & Chang, Ha-Joon, 2019. "The political economy of industrial policy: Structural interdependencies, policy alignment and conflict management," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 136-150.
    20. Johannes Fedderke, 2001. "Growth and institutions," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(6), pages 645-670.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:icr:wpicer:41-2007. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Daniele Pennesi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/icerrit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.