Wed Aug 28 10:09:22 EDT 2002
ABSTRACTS IN ECONOMIC HISTORY
(c) 2002 EH.Net
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Name: Ron Harris
Email: harrisr at post.tau.ac.il
Institution: School of Law, Tel Aviv University
Co-author: none
Title: The Encounters of Economic History and Legal History
Internet Address of abstracted work:
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/lhr/har21_2.pdf
By mail:
School of Law
Tel Aviv University
Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 69978
Israel
Language: English
Abstract:
Legal history and economic history were reshaped as interdisciplinary
fields in the 1960s but have not interacted since. The aim of the
present article is to analyze the reasons for this and to promote
future interaction between them. Over the last two decades, legal
historians have gradually disassociated themselves from economic
theory and economic history. Ironically, at the same time, economists
and economic historians discovered the relevance of the law and legal
change to their field. Several trends within economic theory,
embodied in the Historical New Institutional Economics, raised
interest in legal history: the turn from static to dynamic theory,
growing interest in the explanation of change, the shift of focus
from markets to institutions and their endogenization. This article
presents the general characteristics of HNIE and gives examples of
studies associated with it that deal with various aspects of legal
history to convince legal historians of the potential relevance of
recent economic history to their projects. The article also examines,
from a legal historian's perspective, reasons for the failure of past
legal historians, notably Hurst, to interact with economic
historians. It then acknowledges the adverse effects that law and
economics had on the prospects for interaction. Lastly it introduces
several groups of legal historians that are currently interacting
with economic history and theory. The border-zone between legal
history and economic history is changing rapidly. Its future shape
may enlighten us as to the prospects of discourse across the great
divide between the economic sciences and the humanities.
Bibliography: Harris, Ron. "The Encounters of Economic History and
Legal History." Forthcoming Articles, Pre - Print Manuscript Drafts,
Law and History Review, Issue 21.2 (2003).
All pre-print drafts posted in
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/lhr/toc.php are protected by
copyright administered by the University of Illinois Press.
Subject: C
Geographical Area: 0
Country/Region:
Time Period: 0
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