Differences between civil and common law systems are interesting (from an economic perspective) because the differences draw attention to the positive and negative incentive effects, or other costs and benefits, of inherited rules. In this Essay, we emphasize such a comparative law-and-economics approach by drawing on seemingly unrelated areas of law, where civil and common law rules are generally (but not always) dissimilar, and by arguing that fundamental and universal incentive problems go a long way toward explaining both the similarities and the differences among the various rules. In particular, we choose one theme: the choice between damages and disgorgement.
Link to Work