ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter of the book presents an overview of key concepts discussed in subsequent chapters of this book. The economic approach to law embodies norms of two types: procedural or epistemological norms, the norms of scientific inquiry; and moral or political norms, which come into play when the economic approach is used as a basis for making proposals for legal reform. The two types of norms correspond to the conventional distinction between positive and normative analysis, but the conventional distinction is confusing because norms enter into positive analysis, merely norms of a different type. Some of the basic economizing properties of law had been perceived since antiquity, notably the function of property in creating investment incentives; but the first notable explicit application of economics to law was Bentham's economic theory of crime and punishment, revived two centuries later by Gary Becker.
