Law and Economics in Bonn – Two Disciplines Under One Roof
Law and Economics refers to a field of research that applies methods from modern economics to address legal issues, both in the context of lawmaking and the application of the law. In the United States, law and economics has been established as a distinct discipline since the 1970s. Today, there are also numerous teaching and research institutions in this field in Europe.
The University of Bonn is one of the few universities in Germany uniting the Department of Law and the Department of Economics in one faculty. Such combined faculties were formerly very common. As the specialization of the individual disciplines became more and more extensive, many the formerly combined faculties split up. The University of Bonn never succumbed to this trend. And if not mistaken, current developments proof this decision to have been very wise. In any case, several German universities have recently reversed the separation of their faculties for law and for economics.
In parallel with research in the field of law and economics, the University of Bonn therefore offers a corresponding bachelor’s degree program that enables students to acquire legal, economic, and law-and-economics competencies in equal measure.
A mainstream trend in American legal scholarship
While economics emerged, as it were, from the field of law in the 19th century, it is today the economic sciences that provide important impetus to the legal profession. The origins of a fruitful connection between the two disciplines lie in the United States of America. Legal scholarship and legal education in the U.S. have long been shaped by so-called “legal realism,” which relativizes legal doctrine and places the social and economic roots of legal decisions at the center of its considerations. In the period following World War II, American legal scholarship produced a wealth of new approaches, ranging from “Law and Literature” to “Law and Feminism” and “Law and Psychology.” Most of these research areas remain niche fields to this day. Law and Economics stands out clearly from them. Not only does this discipline now have chairs at many prestigious universities. More importantly, the approach, vocabulary, and methods of economic analysis have conquered the mainstream of American legal scholarship and now also influence the content and style of Supreme Court decisions. This applies by no means only to commercial law, but to all subdisciplines of legal scholarship, from civil law to criminal law to constitutional law.
Analytical clearness and argumentative precision
Of course, economic analysis does not meet with unanimous approval. Nevertheless, it is hard to deny that this approach has brought about a significant gain in analytical clarity and argumentative precision. Even those who distrust economic criteria and disagree with specific findings of economic analysis must admit that legal issues can be discussed far more precisely within the scientific framework of law and economics than without it. In Europe, too, legal policy and legal practice discourses today often take place using the terminology of economic analysis, and research findings from this discipline are widely taken seriously.
Convergence of academic interests
Economic theory as such has evolved significantly in recent years. Game-theoretic analyses provide a better understanding of how markets function. The field of behavioral economics examines human behavior in markets and, on this basis, arrives at new insights. All of these developments are also significant for the law. The CASTLE brings together the current state of research in the fields of law and economics. For some members of the economics department, the economic analysis of institutions, and thus also of legal structures, is the focus of their research. The law department includes scholars who, for their part, are familiar with the methods and findings of economic institutional research. Numerous collaborations in research and teaching attest to the convergence of academic interests.
