The Artificiality of Economic Models as a Guide for Legal Evolution

This Comment focuses on the frequent conflict between orthodox economic theory and the direction taken by legislation or the common law. Several specific areas of legal decision making are discussed as illustrations of this conflict with an emphasis on the artificiality of the economic thinking that caused the disagreement. The purpose of this analysis is to caution those who would use economic models as their primary beacon for prescribing future legal developments. The first section of this Comment looks at three specific controversial areas in which orthodox economic arguments are frequently considered: wage and price controls, comparable worth claims, and minimum wage laws. For each of these debates, the analysis demonstrates the conflict between prevailing economic theory and the eventual legal development and points out the flawed factual basis upon which much of the economic theory rests. The second section then suggests commonalities that characterize the debate and speculates about the reason for the tension between economic models and legal decision making