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Lasting Legal Legacies: Early English Legal Ideas and Later Caselaw Development During the Industrial Revolution

Author

Listed:
  • Grajzl Peter

    (Department of Economics, Williams School of Commerce, Economics and Politics, Washington and Lee University, 204 West Washington St., Lexington, VA 24450, USA)

  • Murrell Peter

    (University of Maryland, College Park, USA)

Abstract

We explore English legal evolution by empirically investigating the relevance of late-medieval and early-modern legal ideas for caselaw development during the Industrial Revolution, an era of unprecedented societal change. To ascertain the prevalence of specific legal ideas in pre-1765 case reports, we draw on existing topic model estimates. We measure the relevance of those ideas for subsequent caselaw development using post-1764 citations to the pre-1765 cases. We show that deliberations on court cases heard between 1765 and 1870 systematically invoked a broad range of preexisting legal ideas. Strikingly, the strongest effects are exhibited by Coke-style analysis and precedent-based thought. A key legacy of early English caselaw therefore lay in bestowing modes of reasoning. The reason why a subset of preexisting legal ideas does not exert a detectable effect is that those ideas were generally no longer key to post-1764 legal disputes. Our approach to investigating legal development could be applied in many other contexts.

Suggested Citation

  • Grajzl Peter & Murrell Peter, 2022. "Lasting Legal Legacies: Early English Legal Ideas and Later Caselaw Development During the Industrial Revolution," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 85-141, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:rlecon:v:18:y:2022:i:1:p:85-141:n:6
    DOI: 10.1515/rle-2021-0070
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Peter Grajzl & Peter Murrell, 2022. "Did Caselaw Foster England’s Economic Development during the Industrial Revolution? Data and Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 10088, CESifo.
    2. Grajzl, Peter & Murrell, Peter, 2023. "A macrohistory of legal evolution and coevolution: Property, procedure, and contract in early-modern English caselaw," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    English caselaw; legal development; industrial revolution; legal history; machine learning;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K10 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - General (Constitutional Law)
    • K30 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - General
    • N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • P10 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - General
    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access

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