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Kerber, Wolfgang --- "European System of Private Laws: An Economic Perspective" [2008] ELECD 191; in Cafaggi, Fabrizio; Muir Watt, Horatia (eds), "Making European Private Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: Making European Private Law

Editor(s): Cafaggi, Fabrizio; Muir Watt, Horatia

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201980

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: European System of Private Laws: An Economic Perspective

Author(s): Kerber, Wolfgang

Number of pages: 34

Extract:

4. European system of private laws: an
economic perspective
Wolfgang Kerber

1. INTRODUCTION
Like legal scholars, economists have also based their theories on public policy
on the fundamental difference between the (sovereign) nation state and the
international (or global) level. The policy aim was the promotion of the
welfare of the population in the nation states; therefore the nation state was the
`natural' place for the competences of economic and social policies. Beyond
the level of the nation state, economics has always emphasised the importance
of the international division of labour, based upon economic theories of inter-
national trade. Although the need to have an institutional framework for inter-
national trade (especially for enforcing free trade) has always been stressed,
these international rules, based upon international treaties, have been seen in
economics as very special rules ­ in much the same way that international law
has been viewed from the perspective of the legal systems of the nation states.
This paradigm of the strict separation of the national level and the interna-
tional level has been increasingly questioned since the 1990s, because it no
longer seems to grasp the recent economic, social, and legal developments in
a globalised world.
In political science, the law and economics more or less elaborated notions
of multi-level governance or multi-level systems of jurisdictions have been
suggested as an alternative approach.1 This is also linked with the thesis of the
decreasing importance of the traditional nation state. This change of perspec-
tive seems ...


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