Introduction

Abstract

The legal system and its rules and norms facilitate the formation of formal and informal markets on which voluntary, value-creating exchanges and resource movements can take place. As Coase (1991) notes, ‘without the appropriate institutions no market economy of any significance is possible’. Just as understanding markets, the process of trade and the gains from trade are all central to understanding economics, understanding the role that legal rules and institutions play in facilitating economic exchange is a vital part of understanding of the very same phenomena.