ABSTRACT
A MARKET ECONOMY is a self-ordered network of economic activities that results from people pursuing their interests within a framework of rules represented primarily by the principles of property, contract, and tort. Those rules, and the processes by which they are adopted and revised, provide the foundation upon which a market economy rests. Just as a substantial economic literature has explored the efficiency properties of a market economy, a more recent literature has sought to explore the efficiency properties of the legal order that governs market processes. In so doing, a contrast has been developed between common law, which emerges out of the activities of judges, juries, and lawyers, and statute law, which emerges out of the activities of legislators and bureaucrats.
