From June 1 to June 13, I found myself immersed in the stunning landscapes of Park City, Utah, attending the Law Institute for Economics Professors, organized by the Law & Economics Center at Scalia Law School. This two-week intensive program served as a crash course in American law, and I’ll be sharing key insights in upcoming posts. As a side note, if you’re an economics professor, I highly recommend this enriching experience.
A prominent takeaway from my time at the institute relates to the critical need for breaking down disciplinary silos. There is an increasing trend in American public discourse to compartmentalize issues: X is strictly a political matter, while Y belongs solely to public health. This often leads to the mantra of “listen to the experts” of that particular field, disregarding perspectives from other disciplines. I’ve witnessed this phenomenon twice in recent years. First, during the Covid pandemic, as policy decisions seemed arbitrary, economists were frequently told to “stay in your lane.” However, economics is interwoven into every aspect of life; it fundamentally examines how individuals make choices under constraints. When those constraints shift, so do the incentives, meaning economics has a lot to contribute. If public health officials had consulted economists (and experts from other fields) more, perhaps they could have circumvented the cascading failures that marred the U.S. response to Covid. More recently, critiques from economists regarding Trump’s trade policies have been dismissed as irrelevant because they are deemed “political.”
However, this impulse to segregate issues into neat categories stifles critical thinking. Economics—and other fields—offer valuable insights into real-world challenges that transcend the narrow confines of any single discipline. Yes, economics had pertinent observations regarding the spread of the pandemic; for instance, we understand that price controls can lead to shortages, compelling individuals to hunt for scarce resources. In the context of a pandemic that spreads through close contact, this increases interaction points, which in turn creates more vectors for disease transmission, exacerbating the spread. Furthermore, economics could have provided strategies for ramping up the production of essential goods—insights that were largely overlooked.
Bringing this back to the intersection of law and economics, one striking observation during the conference was the profound relevance of these two fields to each other. I do not refer to Richard Posner’s notion that economics should dictate the efficiency of law. Rather, both law and economics examine social orders, albeit from differing perspectives. Importantly, by “law,” I mean the broader spectrum of rules—both those instituted by governments and those that emerge organically—that regulate our lives. Economics provides critical insights into how such emergent rules develop and persist, as well as the incentives faced by various legal actors (judges, juries, expert witnesses, etc.). Conversely, law contributes significantly to our understanding of how individuals negotiate and engage in exchanges.
Adam Smith aptly noted that while the division of labor can enhance our productive capacities and spur innovation, it also carries the risk of fostering a “torpor of his mind,” rendering individuals “as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become” (Wealth of Nations, pp. 781–782). This is precisely the danger of siloing. While specialization is beneficial, we must not allow ourselves to become so divorced from the broader landscape that we dismiss insights from other disciplines. With that in mind, I will be sharing insights from the realm of law in my forthcoming posts.
