IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/roswps/23.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Evolution of the German Tort Law in the 19th Century - An Economic Analysis of the Evolution of Law

Author

Listed:
  • Eckardt, Martina

Abstract

Despite the advances in New Institutional Economics about the economic consequences of institutions and legal rules, up to now we have only limited knowledge about the mechanisms of the evolution of law. By combining the main ideas of Evolutionary Economics and New Institutional Economics this paper tries to contribute to our understanding of the process of institutional innovations. It is shown that the decisive factors that explain legal change are (1) the cognitive creativity of the actors and (2) wealth effects caused by negative technological externalities, which result from the use of new technologies. The main focus is on the evolution of the German tort law in the 19th century beginning with the introduction of the strict liability rule for railway accidents by the Prussian Railway Law in 1838. This was a complete break with the whole German tradition of tort law which was firmly based for centuries on the negligence rule. This case study shows how the co-evolution of technical and legal changes triggered off a trial-and-error-process of legal innovations and imitations that resulted in the present-day broad diffusion of the liability rule in the German tort law.

Suggested Citation

  • Eckardt, Martina, 1999. "The Evolution of the German Tort Law in the 19th Century - An Economic Analysis of the Evolution of Law," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 23, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:roswps:23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/78268/1/wp023thuenen.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard A. Easterlin, 1992. "Analysis," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(4), pages 51-53, July.
    2. Von Wangenheim, Georg, 1993. "The evolution of judge-made law," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 381-411, December.
    3. Arthur T. Denzau & Douglass C. North, 1994. "Shared Mental Models: Ideologies and Institutions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1), pages 3-31, February.
    4. Douglass C. North, 1990. "A Transaction Cost Theory of Politics," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 2(4), pages 355-367, October.
    5. R. H. Coase, 2013. "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 837-877.
    6. Libecap,Gary D., 1994. "Contracting for Property Rights," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521449045, October.
    7. Alfred Meier & Susanne Haury, 1990. "A Cognitive-evolutionary Theory of Economic Policy," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Kurt Dopfer & Karl-F. Raible (ed.), The Evolution of Economic Systems, chapter 7, pages 77-87, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Dosi, Giovanni, 1993. "Technological paradigms and technological trajectories : A suggested interpretation of the determinants and directions of technical change," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 102-103, April.
    9. Eggertsson,Thrainn, 1990. "Economic Behavior and Institutions," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521348911, October.
    10. Mueller,Dennis C. (ed.), 1997. "Perspectives on Public Choice," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521553773, October.
    11. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    12. Peter Aranson, 1992. "The common law as central economic planning," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 289-319, September.
    13. Dosi, Giovanni, 1988. "Sources, Procedures, and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 1120-1171, September.
    14. Pier P. Saviotti, 1996. "Technological Evolution, Variety and the Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 727.
    15. Rosenberg,Nathan, 1994. "Exploring the Black Box," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521459556.
    16. Richard R. Nelson, 1995. "Recent Evolutionary Theorizing about Economic Change," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 48-90, March.
    17. Louis Alessi & Robert Staaf, 1991. "The common law process: Efficiency or order?," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 107-126, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Eckardt, Martina, 2004. "Evolutionary approaches to legal change," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 47, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    2. Darcy W E Allen, 2020. "When Entrepreneurs Meet:The Collective Governance of New Ideas," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number q0269, Juni.
    3. Kotsemir, Maxim & Meissner, Dirk, 2013. "Conceptualizing the Innovation Process – Trends and Outlook," MPRA Paper 46504, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Dosi, Giovanni & Nelson, Richard R., 2010. "Technical Change and Industrial Dynamics as Evolutionary Processes," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 51-127, Elsevier.
    5. Stolpe, Michael, 1995. "Technology and the dynamics of specialization in open economies," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 738, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    6. Eggertsson, Thrainn, 1997. "The old theory of economic policy and the new institutionalism," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(8), pages 1187-1203, August.
    7. Giovanni Dosi & Richard Nelson, 2013. "The Evolution of Technologies: An Assessment of the State-of-the-Art," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 3(1), pages 3-46, June.
    8. Jürgen Essletzbichler & David L. Rigby, 2010. "Generalized Darwinism and Evolutionary Economic Geography," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Murat YILDIZOGLU, 2009. "Evolutionary approaches of economic dynamics (In French)," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2009-16, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    10. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    11. Harabi, Najib, 1994. "Technischer Fortschritt in der Schweiz: Empirische Ergebnisse aus industrieökonomischer Sicht [Technischer Fortschritt in der Schweiz:Empirische Ergebnisse aus industrieökonomischer Sicht]," MPRA Paper 6725, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Jurgen Essletzbichler & David Rigby, 2005. "Technological evolution as creative destruction of process heterogeneity: evidence from US plant-level data," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 25-45.
    13. Frank Neffke & Martin Svensson Henning, 2009. "Skill-relatedness and firm diversification," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2009-06, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography, revised Oct 2010.
    14. Uwe Cantner, 2017. "Foundations of Economic Change: An Extended Schumpeterian Approach," Economic Complexity and Evolution, in: Andreas Pyka & Uwe Cantner (ed.), Foundations of Economic Change, pages 9-49, Springer.
    15. Eduardo Wiesner, 2004. "El Origen Politico Del Deficit Fiscal En Colombia: El Contexto Institucional 20 Anos Despues," Documentos CEDE 2531, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    16. Giovanni Dosi & Marco Grazzi, 2006. "Technologies as problem-solving procedures and technologies as input--output relations: some perspectives on the theory of production," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 173-202, February.
    17. Dolfsma, Wilfred, 2005. "Towards a dynamic (Schumpeterian) welfare economics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 69-82, February.
    18. Glenn Furton & Adam Martin, 2019. "Beyond market failure and government failure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 197-216, January.
    19. Koen Frenken & Alessandro Nuvolari, 2004. "Entropy statistics as a framework to analyse technological evolution," Chapters, in: John Foster & Werner Hölzl (ed.), Applied Evolutionary Economics and Complex Systems, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Mario Luiz Possas & Esther Dweck, 2004. "A Multisectoral Micro-Macrodynamic Model e Crescimento Econômico: Uma Resenha Temática sobre a Nova Economia Institucional," Economia, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics], vol. 5(3), pages 1-43.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Evolutionary Economics; New Institutional Economics; Economic Analysis of Law;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • K13 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Tort Law and Product Liability; Forensic Economics
    • N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    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:zbw:roswps:23. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ivrosde.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.