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Review Essay - Some Realism about Rationalism: Economic Analysis of Law in Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

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References

1 Coase, Ronald, The Problem of Social Cost, 3 Journal of Law & Economics 1 (1960); Guido Calabresi, Some Thoughts on Risk Distribution and the Law of Torts, 70 Yale Law Journal 499 (1961). The articles did appear simultaneously because the third volume of the Journal of Law & Economics, even though dated 1960, had really appeared in 1961.Google Scholar

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12 Helmut Heinrichs, in: Palandt, BGB, [Commentary of the German Civil Code] (63rd ed 2004) at Einl Rn 32.Google Scholar

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18 Adams, Ökonomische Theorie des Rechts, supra note 14 at 105; mainly following the seminal enquiry by Becker, Gary S., The Economics of Discrimination (1957).Google Scholar

19 Zumbansen, Peer, Law of Contracts, in: Introduction to German Law (Reimann, Mathias/Zekoll, Joachim eds., 2ND Ed. 2005), 179, 190.Google Scholar

20 Ibid. at 121.Google Scholar

21 For the roots of this approach see Winkler, Viktor, Ökonomische Analyse des Rechts im 19. Jahrhundert: Victor Matajas “Recht des Schadensersatzes”revisited, 26 Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 262 (2004).Google Scholar

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26 See Thieme, Hans, Das Naturrecht und die europäische Privatrechtsgeschichte (1947); Ludwig Mitteis, Vom Lebenswert der Rechtsgeschichte (1947); Paul Koschaker, Europa und das römische Recht (1947). A brillant inquiry into this connection is Heinz Mohnhaupt, Zur “Neugründung” des Naturrechts nach 1945: Helmut Coings “Die obersten Grundsätze des Rechts” (1947), in Rechtsgeschichtswissenschaft in Deutschland 1945 bis 1952, 97 (Horst Schröder ed., 2001).Google Scholar

27 An exhaustive critique on the dominance of the Natural Law Renaissance in German legal history is lacking. For many important rectifications, see Kühl, Kristian, Kontinuitäten und Diskontinuitäten im Naturrechtsdenken des 20. Jahrhunderts, in Erkenntnisgewinne – Erkenntisverluste 605 (Acham, Karl, Nörr, Knut Wolfgang, Schefold, Bertram eds., 1998), and Joachim Rückert, Zu Kontinuitäten und Diskontinuitäten in der juristischen Methodendiskussion nach 1945, in Erkenntnisgewinne – Erkenntisverluste 113 (Acham, Karl, Nörr, Knut Wolfgang, Schefold, Bertram eds., 1998).Google Scholar

28 see Naturrecht im 19. Jahrhundert (Deithelm Klippel ed., 1997).Google Scholar

29 The most prominent scholars were Franz Wieacker (1908—1994), Karl Larenz (1903—1993), Hans Welzel (1904—1977), and Ernst Rudolf Huber (1903—1990).Google Scholar

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37 Winkler, Viktor, Dubious Heritage. The German Debate on the Anti-Discrimination Law, 15 Iowa Journal of Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems (forthcoming, 2005); for this particular discussion see id., The Planned German Anti-Discrimination Act: Legal Vandalism? A Response to Karl-Heinz Ladeur, 3 German Law Journal No. 6 (2002).Google Scholar

38 See the “classic” Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Dispair (1961); Ulrich Kronauer, Gegenwelten der Aufklärung (2003).Google Scholar

39 See Kamphausen, Georg, Die Erfindung Amerikas in der Kulturkritik der Generation von 1890 (2002).Google Scholar

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53 Ibid.Google Scholar

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55 For the underlying problems between enlightenment, indoctrination and academic freedom see Kennedy, Duncan, Politicizing the Classroom, 4 U.S.C. Review of Law and Women's Studies 81 (1995).Google Scholar