This Encyclopedia offers a concise introduction to law and economics, a thriving and continuously evolving field. While other valuable resources already provide numerous essays on specific topics, this encyclopedia is original, differing from—and complementing—existing encyclopedias and companions in four respects. First, to cover as many aspects and dimensions of law and economics as possible, it includes a large number of relatively short chapters. Second, many of these chapters explore the boundaries between law and economics and related fields such as public choice, institutional economics, transaction cost economics, and industrial economics. Third, the encyclopedia allocates space for historical and methodological chapters focusing on the founders of the field and on important scholars who, directly or indirectly, contributed to shaping law and economics as it is today. This new edition aims to expand these distinctive features. Its goal is to cover even more areas within law and economics—particularly by addressing issues raised by big data and new technologies—to deepen the interdisciplinary dimension of the field and to include additional historical and methodological chapters. The second edition includes 150 additional entries compared to the first edition, with most of the existing chapters updated. This results in a broader and more up-to-date coverage of law and economics.
