IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/9836.html

Legal Evolution, Contract Evolution, and Standardization

Author

Listed:
  • Perotti, Enrico
  • Gennaioli, Nicola
  • Ponzetto, Giacomo

Abstract

In a model where biased judges can distort contract enforcement, we uncover positive feedback effects between the use of innovative contracts and legal evolution that improve verifiability and contracting over time. We find, however, that the cost of judicial bias also grows over time because the unpredictable application of precedents becomes costlier as the law matures. Contract standardization avoids this cost, statically improving enforcement; but it crowds out innovative contracts, hindering legal evolution. We shed light on the large-scale commercial codification undertaken in the nineteenth century in many common-law countries during a period of booming long-distance trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Perotti, Enrico & Gennaioli, Nicola & Ponzetto, Giacomo, 2019. "Legal Evolution, Contract Evolution, and Standardization," CEPR Discussion Papers 9836, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9836
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP9836
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Varian,Hal R. & Farrell,Joseph & Shapiro,Carl, 2004. "The Economics of Information Technology," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521844154, January.
    2. Claude Menard & Mary M. Shirley (ed.), 2005. "Handbook of New Institutional Economics," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-0-387-25092-2, December.
    3. Luca Anderlini & Leonardo Felli & Alessandro Riboni, 2014. "Why Stare Decisis?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(4), pages 726-738, October.
    4. Nicola Gennaioli, 2013. "Optimal Contracts With Enforcement Risk," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 59-82, February.
    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. Nicola Gennaioli & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2015. "Optimally vague contracts and the law," Economics Working Papers 1410, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jan 2017.
    2. Nicola Gennaioli & Giacomo A.M. Ponzetto, 2015. "Contract Innovation and Legal Evolution under Imperfect Enforcement," Working Papers 836, Barcelona School of Economics.

    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. Nicola Gennaioli & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2015. "Optimally vague contracts and the law," Economics Working Papers 1410, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jan 2017.
    2. Nicola Gennaioli & Enrico Perotti, 2009. "Standardized enforcement: Access to justice vs contractual innovation," Economics Working Papers 1329, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jun 2012.
    3. Luca Anderlini & Leonardo Felli & Giovanni Immordino & Alessandro Riboni, 2013. "Legal Institutions, Innovation, And Growth," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 54(3), pages 937-956, August.
    4. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7722 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Nicola Gennaioli & Giacomo A.M. Ponzetto, 2015. "Contract Innovation and Legal Evolution under Imperfect Enforcement," Working Papers 836, Barcelona School of Economics.
    6. Ardanaz, Martín & Leiras, Marcelo & Tommasi, Mariano, 2012. "The Politics of Federalism in Argentina: Implications for Governance and Accountability," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 3977, Inter-American Development Bank.
    7. Tiantian Gu & Anand Venkateswaran, 2018. "Firm-supplier relations and managerial compensation," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 621-649, October.
    8. Dorothea Alewell & Sven Hauff & Katrin Weiland & Kirsten Thommes, 2011. "HRM and the use of personnel services: an empirical analysis of German firms," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 32(4), pages 394-409, July.
    9. Paskalev, Zdravko & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2017. "A theory of outsourced fundraising: Why dollars turn into “Pennies for Charity”," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 1-18.
    10. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/8221 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Levine, Ross, 2006. "Bank supervision and corruption in lending," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 2131-2163, November.
    12. Sanchez-Pages Santiago & Straub Stéphane, 2010. "The Emergence of Institutions," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-38, September.
    13. Fang,Sheng & Goh,Chorching & Roberts,Mark & Xu,L. Colin & Zeufack,Albert G., 2020. "Female Business Leaders, Business and Cultural Environment, and Productivity around the World," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9275, The World Bank.
    14. Albert N. Honlonkou & Rashid M. Hassan, 2015. "Developing Countries' Response To The Clean Development Mechanism Under Imperfect Information And Transaction Costs," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(01), pages 1-22.
    15. Niclas Berggren & Therese Nilsson, 2013. "Does Economic Freedom Foster Tolerance?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 177-207, May.
    16. Ying Chen & Hülya Eraslan, 2020. "Learning while setting precedents," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(4), pages 1222-1252, December.
    17. Vladimir I. Soloviev & Natalia A. Iliina & Marina V. Samoyavcheva, 2009. "Cournot Equilibrium In A Model Of Hardware And Software Manufacturers' Interaction," Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, Faculty of Sciences, "1 Decembrie 1918" University, Alba Iulia, vol. 1(11), pages 1-4.
    18. Beck, T.H.L., 2007. "Financing constraints of SMEs in developing countries : Evidence, determinants and solutions," Other publications TiSEM 85aac075-08b5-44ce-bf1a-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    19. Kryeziu Liridon & Coşkun Recai, 2018. "Political and Economic Institutions and Economic Performance: Evidence from Kosovo," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 13(2), pages 84-99, December.
    20. Möllering, Guido, 2009. "Market constitution analysis: A new framework applied to solar power technology markets," MPIfG Working Paper 09/7, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    21. L. Lambertini, 2013. "Coordinating Static and Dynamic Supply Chains with Advertising through Two-Part Tariffs," Working Papers wp874, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    22. Cantoni, Davide & Yuchtman, Noam, 2013. "The political economy of educational content and development: Lessons from history," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 233-244.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D86 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Economics of Contract Law
    • K12 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Contract Law
    • K40 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - General
    • K41 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Litigation Process

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:9836. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.