Law and Neoclassical Economic Development: Toward an Institutionalist Critique of Institutionalism by Chantal Thomas
In his 1993 Nobel Laureate lecture, the leading theorist of institutional economics, Douglass North, emphasized the relevance of his life’s work for economic development policy… Part One and Part Two
Read MoreEngendering Development/Marketing Equality by Kerry Rittich
In a recent policy research report, Engendering Development: Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice, the World Bank lays out a new “market-centered” approach to gender equality. Engendering Development is important for at least two reasons. First, it represents the most ambitious and comprehensive attempt by the Bank to date to explore and resolve the relationship between two goals that have often been in tension, gender equality and the pursuit of economic growth....
Read MoreCritical Directions in Comparative Family Law: Genealogies and Contemporary Studies of Family Law Exceptionalism by Janet Halley and Kerry Rittich
This is an Introduction to a Special Issue of the American Journal of Comparative Law, edited by Janet Halley. The central theme of the Special Issue is “family law exceptionalism”: the myriad ways in which the family and its law are deemed, either descriptively or normatively, to be special. We argue that the nineteenth century emergence of Family Law as a distinct legal topic, influenced inter alia by Friedrich Carl von Savigny and carried around the world as part of the influence...
Read MoreThe Future of Law and Development: Second Generation Reforms and the Incorporation of the Social by Kerry Rittich
One of the most significant events in the field of development in recent years has been the effort to incorporate social concerns into the mainstream agenda of market reform and economic development… Part One and Part Two
Read MoreConvergences and Divergences in International Legal Norms on Migrant Labor by Chantal Thomas
Multiple international legal regimes’-in human rights law, refugee law, labor law, trade law and criminal law-address, to some degree, the rights and privileges that should be accorded to aliens working within the territories of states parties. Even within these particular subject areas, let alone between them, however, “little has been done” in the way of synthesis… Part One Part...
Read MoreBlack Sites: Locating the Family and Family Law in Development by Kerry Rittich
While the family as an economic institution has traditionally been sidelined in development policy, development institutions like the World Bank now promote a range of legal and policy reforms that touch on the family and the household. This Article considers how interventions designed to expand formal markets and to encourage participation in markets and investments in human capital might provoke change within the family and the household. Although they aim to increase welfare by increasing...
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