On Training Law and Economics Scholarship in the Legal Academia

Although law and economics is considered to be enjoying significant success and influence in the United States, particularly in American law schools, its reception elsewhere is at most tepid. In this paper, I suggest that this sorry state of affairs is due to the lack of economic literacy skills among legal scholars, which in turn is due to the legal and economic education systems in Europe and in other countries following a similar structure. Some evidence of the importance of competency in these economic literacy skills for success in law and economics scholarship is offered by way of analysis of journal editorships as a proxy for success. Furthermore, the effectiveness of various law and economics programmes are discussed and the establishment of doctoral programmes in law and economics within the legal academia as a solution to the problem of law and economics scholarship is examined.