TOWARDS THE CONSTRIBUTION OF ECONOMICS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF ITS SCIENTIFIC NEIGHBORS. The case of a legal scholarship

Abstract

In Tříska (2017) have been suggested ways how legal scholarship (LS) may contribute to the development of economics - economic theory (ET). The objective of the present article is to corroborate a reverse know how transfer, i.e. from ET to LS. Its method is thus primarily derived from how micro-economics approaches the institution of a homo economicus. The articles objective is to show under what conditions can this economic method be expanded and generalized so as to open ways for its application upon neighboring disciplines of societal studies. The outcome of this endeavor– for want of a better term - is presented under the label of a General Theory of Choice and Behavior (GTCB). Moreover, it is argued that – under the umbrella of GTCB – the disciplines can establish their genuine scientific underpinning and hence also absorb a formalized analytical tool-kit. For concreteness, this conclusion is illustrated for legal scholarship, namely its concept a contract to be strictly taken in the economics sense of a collective choice. On the highest level of generalization, the article should be understood as a response to the seminal Elinor Ostrom’s call for an agreement amongst societal scholars upon universally acceptable analytical building blocks.