Comparative Law by Numbers? Legal Origins Thesis, Doing Business Reports, and the Silence of Traditional Comparative Law

Abstract

The legal origins thesis—the thesis that legal origin impacts economic growth and the common law is better for economic growth than the civil law—has created hundreds of papers and citation numbers unheard of among comparative lawyers. The Doing Business reports—cross-country comparisons including rankings on the attractiveness of different legal systems for doing business—have the highest circulation numbers of all World Bank Publications; even critics admit that they have been successful at inciting legal reform in many countries in the world. Yet, traditional comparative lawyers have all but ignored these developments. This ignorance has at least three negative consequences. First, the economic debate will continue to ignore or misrepresent traditional comparative law knowledge if we do not bring our specific knowledge to the table. Second, comparative law as a discipline misses the opportunity to measure its own progress and shortcomings in view of a literature which, although on its face radically different, provides important challenges. This concerns especially the promises and shortcomings of interdisciplinarity. Third, and perhaps most importantly, our silence means that comparative law as a field remains (or increasingly becomes) irrelevant for political projects because its themes are discussed more and more by others. If we comparative lawyers want to retain (or regain) relevance, we need to bring our particular expertise to bear on projects as important as law reform. The first purpose of this essay is to introduce the legal origins literature to traditional comparative law and to show important con-

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