Skip to main content

Gordon Tullock and the Virginia School of Law and Economics

Constitutional Political Economy volume 28, pages 48–61 (2017)Cite this article

Abstract

In 1999 Gordon Tullock became Professor at the George Mason University Law School. Tullock’s arrival at George Mason brought the economics department and the law school close together. The work that resulted during those years consolidated the methodological foundations for a different way of thinking about the economic analysis of law—the “functional” approach to law and economics. The functional law and economics approach espoused by the Virginia School was not attacking any of the results of the Chicago School or the Yale School, but rather proposing a methodological shift. This paper presents some of the results developed by this school and illustrates Tullock’s controversial positions on trials and on the common law system, through anecdotes, Tullock’s own work and related scholarly contributions.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price includes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Fig. 1

Notes

  1. The anecdotes and personal memories here are courtesy of Prof. Parisi, who was a colleague of Prof. Tullock's when he joined the Law Faculty at George Mason University.

  2. Following Parisi (2002), a change in the mix of adversarial and inquisitorial components should have no effect on the total return, but may change the plaintiff and defendant’s returns from litigation.

  3. Total dissipation increases monotonically in the number of participants \(N\) in litigation, ranging from one half up to the full value of the case. See Dari-Mattiacci and Parisi (2005) on the mixed-strategy solution to Tullock’s paradox. See also Higgins et al. (1985) for rent-seeking contests with endogenously determined numbers of litigants.

  4. Not surprisingly, total discovery and litigation costs increase with the value of the case, \(m_{\text{A}}\), assessed on the basis of adversarially-produced evidence.

  5. This explicit formulation is motivated, because in jurisdictions adopting the English rule, courts liquidate litigation costs on the basis of the fees established by the professional bar associations, computed according to the value of the case and the actual litigation costs (reflected by the number of hearings and motions filed, etc.).

  6. For clarity, the dependence of the probability function p on \(E_{P}\) and \(E_{D}\) is omitted throughout the text.

  7. See also Priest (1977), Priest and Klein (1984), Fon and Parisi (2003), and Fon et al. (2005) for early work on case selection in common law.

  8. See Tullock (1996, 2004, 2005, p. 441), for the plaintiff’s externality under the American rule. According to Fon and Parisi (2009) and Luppi and Parisi (2012, 2015), the selection of different cases under different fee-shifting rules leads to different paths of evolution of judge-made law. Once adjudicated, these cases will generate a negative flow of precedents, leading to a reduced likelihood of success of similar cases in the future. Region B may lead to bubbles of litigation, generating contractionary trends under the American rule, not otherwise observed under the English rule. On the contrary, cases in region C will more likely generate a flow of positive precedents and adjudication of these cases will lead to the consolidation of judge-made rules. Region C will more likely foster consolidation of remedies and a greater stability of legal protection under the English rule.

  9. Any legal system using the English rule sets limitations on the amount of recoverable legal fees on the basis of the reasonableness and proportionality of the expenditures for the assertion and defense of the legal rights in question. See also Bungard (2006).

References

  • Bungard, B. C. (2006). Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum!: I smell the efficiency of the English Rule: Finding the right approach to tort reform. Seton Hall Legislative Journal, 31, 1–64.

    Google Scholar 

  • Calabresi, G. (1991). The pointlessness of Pareto: Carrying coase further. Yale Law Journal, 100, 1211–1237.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carbonara, E., Parisi, F., & Von Wangenheim, G. (2015). Rent-seeking and litigation: The hidden virtues of the limited fee shifting. Review of Law and Economics, 11(2), 113–148.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dari-Mattiacci, G., & Parisi, F. (2005). Rents, dissipation, and lost treasures: Rethinking Tullock’s paradox. Public Choice, 124, 411–422.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Farmer, A., & Pecorino, P. (1999). Legal expenditure as a rent-seeking game. Public Choice, 100(3–4), 271–288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fon, V., & Parisi, F. (2003). Litigation and the evolution of legal remedies: A dynamic model. Public Choice, 116, 419–433.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fon, V., & Parisi, F. (2009). The economics of lawmaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fon, V., Parisi, F., & Depoorter, B. (2005). Litigation, judicial path-dependence, and legal change. European Journal of Law and Economics, 20, 43–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Higgins, R. S., Shughart, W. F, I. I., & Tollison, R. D. (1985). Efficient rents, free entry and efficient rent seeking. Public Choice, 46(3), 247–258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luppi, B., & Parisi, F. (2012). Litigation and legal evolution: Does procedure matter? Public Choice, 152, 181–201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luppi, B., & Parisi, F. (2015). Rent-seeking in the law. In R. Congleton & A. Hillman (Eds.), Companion to rent-seeking (pp. 293–307). Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parisi, F. (2002). Rent-seeking through litigation: Adversarial and inquisitorial systems compared. International Review of Law and Economics, 22, 193–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Posner, R. A. (1999). An economic approach to the law of evidence. Chicago Working Papers in Law and Economics No. 66 (2nd Series).

  • Posner, R. A., & Parisi, F. (1999). Analisi Economica del Diritto Privato e Commerciale: Una Rassegna. Biblioteca delle Libertà, 34, 3–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Priest, G. L. (1977). The common law process and the selection of efficient rules. Journal of Legal Studies, 6, 65–82.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Priest, G. L., & Klein, B. (1984). The selection of disputes for litigation. Journal of Legal Studies, 13, 1–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rowley, C. (2012). The intellectual legacy of Gordon Tullock. Public Choice, 152(1), 29–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tullock, G. (1980a). Efficient rent-seeking. In J. M. Buchanan, G. Tollison, & G. Tullock (Eds.), Toward a theory of the rent-seeking society (pp. 97–112). College Station: Texas A&M University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tullock, G. (1980b). Trials on trial: The pure theory of legal procedure. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tullock, G. (1988). Defending the Napoleonic code over the common law. Research in Law and Policy Studies, 2, 3–27

    Google Scholar 

  • Tullock, G. (1996). The case against the common law (1 Blackstone Commentaries Series). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

  • Tullock, G. (2004). On the efficient organization of trials. In C. K. Rowley (Ed.), The selected works of Gordon Tullock (Vol. 1). Indianapolis: Liberty Funds.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tullock, G. (2005). Rent seeking and the law. In C. K. Rowley (Ed.), The selected works of Gordon Tullock (Vol. 5). Liberty Funds: Indianapolis.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Minnesota Law School, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Francesco Parisi

  2. Department of Economics, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Francesco Parisi

  3. Department of Economics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy

    Barbara Luppi

  4. Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Alice Guerra

Authors
  1. Francesco Parisi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Barbara Luppi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Alice Guerra
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Francesco Parisi.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Parisi, F., Luppi, B. & Guerra, A. Gordon Tullock and the Virginia School of Law and Economics. Const Polit Econ 28, 48–61 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-016-9216-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-016-9216-8

Keywords

  • Rent-seeking
  • Litigation
  • Fee-shifting rule
  • Virginia School of Law and Economics

JEL Classification

  • C72
  • D72
  • K10
  • K41