Voigt, Stefan --- "Constitutional Design of Lawmaking" [2011] ELECD 1059; in Parisi, Francesco (ed), "Production of Legal Rules" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Production of Legal Rules

Editor(s): Parisi, Francesco

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848440326

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Constitutional Design of Lawmaking

Author(s): Voigt, Stefan

Number of pages: 15

Extract:

1 Constitutional design of lawmaking
Stefan Voigt



1. Introduction
The economic analysis of constitutional law has not been one of the most
researched topics within law and economics. The research program known as
"constitutional economics" or "constitutional political economy" has primarily
been developed by scholars emanating from public choice, i.e. "the application
of economics to political science" (Mueller 1989, p. 1). James M. Buchanan,
the most prominent proponent of constitutional economics, has described law
and economics as a related subdiscipline that has remained, however, closer to
orthodox economic theory because the standard efficiency norm remains central
to it (Buchanan 1987a, p. 586). scholars of constitutional economics have
broadened the standard research program of economics. standard economics
is interested in the analysis of choices within rules, thus assuming rules to
be exogenously given and fixed. Constitutional economics broadens this
research program by analyzing the choice of rules using the standard method
of economics, i.e. rational choice.
Buchanan defines constitutions in their most basic sense as "a set of rules
which constrain the activities of persons and agents in the pursuits of their
own ends and objectives" (Buchanan 1977, p. 292). Defined as such, quite
a few rule systems could be analyzed as constitutions: a firm's partnership
agreement as well as a church statute. Although such rule systems have indeed
been analyzed from the point of view of constitutional economics (for a firm's
constitution, see gifford 1991 or Vanberg 1992), the rule system analyzed most
often remains the ...