Law and Economics: Is there a Higher Law?

Abstract

In his book, Law's Quandary, Steven D. Smith describes how difficult it would be to explain to a visitor from another planet what "the law" is like. There is no simple person or document to point to and say, "This is the law," the way one might point to an elephant and say, "This is an elephant." As an economist, I can relate to this problem. Just as "the law" is hard to describe, so too is what economists call "the market."