Do Benevolent Rulers Impose Economic Reforms?

2024/08/02 by Andrew M. Riggsby · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Classical Studies and Legal History #Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems #Legal principles and applications

paper · pdf · doi:10.31235/osf.io/3vcmp

openalex publication_date 2024/08/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14

Abstract

Several recent arguments have claimed that various features of Roman law (unavailability of an executory contract of barter; regimes of protection against latent defects and for land title; rules for generic sale) take the shapes they do so as to produce a variety of economic efficiencies. This paper offers two critiques of these accounts. (1) They lack an adequate account of the bounded rationality and motivations of the law-makers. (2) In many cases they misstate the legal rules in question in ways that exaggerate the resulting efficiencies.

Discussions

• New (to me) technology. I have a few lectures lying around that I’m not sure have a future in print. I’ve now put one up as a working paper on a pre-print server. Maybe someone can suggest a future [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]

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