Since the economic reforms of the 1990s, India’s economy has grown rapidly. To sustain growth and foreign investment over the long run requires a well-developed legal infrastructure for conducting business, including cheap and reliable contract enforcement and secure property rights. But it’s widely acknowledged that India’s legal infrastructure is in urgent need of reform, plagued by problems, including slow enforcement of contracts and land laws that differ from state to state. How has this situation arisen, and what can boost business confidence and encourage long-run economic growth? Tirthankar Roy and Anand V. Swamy trace the beginnings of the current Indian legal system to the years of British colonial rule. They show how India inherited an elaborate legal system from the British colonial administration, which incorporated elements from both British Common Law and indigenous institutions. In the case of property law, especially as it applied to agricultural land, indigenous laws and local political expediency were more influential in law-making than concepts borrowed from European legal theory. Conversely, with commercial law, there was considerable borrowing from Europe. In all cases, the British struggled with limited capacity to enforce their laws and an insufficient knowledge of the enormous diversity and differentiation within Indian society. A disorderly body of laws, not conducive to production and trade, evolved over time. Roy and Swamy’s careful analysis not only sheds new light on the development of legal institutions in India, but also offers insights for India and other emerging countries through a look at what fosters the types of institutions that are key to economic growth.

This is one of the first volumes that uses economic tools to analyse and evaluate law and policy in India. Applying economic theories such as incentive analysis, cost–benefit studies, and game theory, the essays in the volume negotiate contentious issues in law including property, contracts, torts, nuclear liability regime, bankruptcy law, criminal law and procedure, constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and family law. A radical take on commercial and socio-legal issues in India, this book will greatly interest scholars and researchers of law, political economy, and public policy.

It is well known that sustainable development practices, technological innovation and good governance play a major role in the accumulation of wealth in a knowledge economy. Hence, the state promotes competition, provides incentives to conserve resources and creates opportunities for citizens to push for innovation and invention. As a result, the formulation of efficient legal rules is essential for protecting intellectual property rights, fully specified contracts and effective ex-ante and ex-post systems. However, can efficient legal rules improve societal well-being by changing the behaviour of individuals and basic social structures and trends? And if so, how can these legal rules be formulated? In their Second International Conference on Law and Economics, the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur aimed to address the formulation and implementation of efficient legal rules while at the same time working towards a greater dissemination of law and economics-based research. This book is the final outcome of this conference that saw over thirty presentations take place. The twelve carefully selected contributions to this volume cover a broad range of topics within law and economics from engaging with decisions makers to create a process for the routine collection of empirical evidence to perceived gender discrimination and stress among working professionals. This book is not only an important contribution to law and economics scholarship but will also be of great interest to both universities and research institutions working within the field.

This book addresses topical development issues in India, ranging from land acquisition, poverty alleviation programs, labor market issues, the public-private partnership (PPP) model and fiscal federalism. It offers an Indian perspective on the dynamics of economic development and the impact the country’s legal and public policies have on it. Economic development is a dynamic concept – old problems are solved, while at the same time new issues come to the fore. The emergence of these issues is unique to the development experience of an economy. The book includes sixteen recent contributions and is divided into four sections: law and contract; trade and foreign aid; issues in public economics; and the social sector and poverty alleviation. The chapters reflect on a number of development issues which were of concern for India in the recent past and will be important in her future development initiatives such as land acquisition, agricultural productivity, employment, protection of intellectual property rights, corruption, public-private partnership, regional development, poverty alleviations programs like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the training of self-help group members, health and education of women, to name a few. The book is a valuable reference resource for policy practitioners and researchers working on the economics of development with special focus on developing economies.

"The editors are grateful to the many people who made this project possible. In this respect we refer both to the conference in February 2008 at the Central University in Hyderabad as well as to the publication of the book."--Acknowledgements.

This book is a major stocktaking of law and economics in the context of developing and emerging economies, and in the light of the dramatic changes in the global economy that we have witnessed in recent years. The rise of artificial intelligence, digital technology, and mega platforms that collect data and facilitate trade is changing the landscape of economics. Rapid globalization has created new challenges for law and regulation, since increasingly contentious cases arise which span multiple countries and several legal jurisdictions. All these changes are giving rise to new problems in developing countries where many people lead precarious lives anyway, healthcare is minimal, and corruption widespread. Alongside these global developments, the discipline of law and economics is also undergoing profound changes, making us re-think some of the founding assumptions of the subject.