Grajzl and Murrell on Families and Inheritance: Law and Development in Pre-Industrial England

Peter Grajzl, Washington and Lee University, Department of Economics; CESifo, and Peter Murrell, University of Maryland, Department of Economics, have published Of Families and Inheritance: Law and Development in Pre-Industrial England. Here is the abstract.

We examine how pre-industrial English caselaw development on land, inheritance, and families affected, and was affected by, economic and demographic outcomes. Our yearly measures of caselaw development are derived from existing topic-model estimates that reflect a comprehensive corpus of reports on pre-1765 court cases. We estimate a structural VAR model using these caselaw time-series in combination with measures of real per-capita income and vital rates. Pre-industrial caselaw development profoundly shaped economic development. Strikingly, the areas of caselaw that stimulated real-income growth are on families and inheritance, not land. Caselaw on families and inheritance was especially important as a driver of real income and birth rates after 1710. Caselaw developments were spurred primarily by changes in real income, not by changes in vital rates. Incorporation of endogenous caselaw development leaves intact the findings of the existing literature that examines pre-industrial economic-demographic interactions. However, our findings do imply that any Malthusian trap that was present in pre-industrial England was made less severe as a result of developments in caselaw on families and inheritance.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Kessler on Family Law By the Numbers: The Story That Casebooks Tell @sjquinney

Laura T. Kessler, University of Utah College of Law, is publishing Family Law by the Numbers: The Story That Casebooks Tell in volume 62 of the Arizona Law Review (2020). Here is the abstract.

This Article presents the findings of a content analysis of 86 family law casebooks published in the United States from 1960 to 2019. Its purpose is to critically assess the discipline of family law with the aim of informing our understandings of family law’s history and exposing its ideological foundations and consequences. Although legal thinkers have written several intellectual histories of family law, this is the first quantitative look at the field. The study finds that coverage of marriage and divorce in family law casebooks has decreased by almost half relative to other topics since the 1960s. In contrast, pages dedicated to child custody and child support have increased, more than doubling their relative share. At the same time, the boundaries of family law appear to remain quite stubborn. Notwithstanding sustained efforts by family law scholars and educators to restructure the field of family law so that it considers additional domains of law affecting families (such as tax, business, employment, health, immigration, and government benefits), the core of the academic field of family law has remained relatively static in the past 60 years. Marriage, divorce, child custody, and child support continue to dominate the topics presented in family law casebooks, representing 55% to 75% of their content since the 1960s.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Timofti on Adoption History, From Ancient Societies to Contemporary Societies

Silvia Timofti, Stefan cel Mare University, has published Adoption History. From Ancient Societies to Contemporary Societies part of the RAIS Conference Proceedings - The 14th International RAIS Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities. Here is the abstract.

From the earliest times, the religious factor has said its word on several social systems. The social factor has been of great importance and relevance to the social construction of the communities as well as to the regulation of the various institutions I have chosen the ones that represent the interests of society. Among these institution is adoption, being one of the oldest law institutions. Adoption is a social phenomenon that has undergone changes that have been inevitable and a breakthrough in the turn of the century. This form of social protection of children, adoption, played a particularly important role in antiquity especially in the institutions of the Jews, the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Indians and the Romans, because the adopted person was perceived as the one to represent the perpetuation of the religious and political interests of the people, after the persons who approached the children died.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

Good Dad @washingtonpost

Sonia Rao discusses the emergence of the caring, sensitive father in popular culture, here, for the Washington Post (subscription may be required). 

Papke On Pop Culture Divorce Lawyers

David Ray Papke, Marquette University Law School, has published Comedic Critique: The Pop Cultural Divorce Lawyer. Here is the abstract.

This essay discusses pop cultural divorce lawyers, focusing in particular on the lawyer Arnie Becker in L.A. Law (NBC, 1986-94) and on divorce lawyers in such Hollywood films as War of the Roses (1996), Liar Liar (1997), and Intolerable Cruelty (2003). The portrayals are largely comedic, but the comedy has a sharp bite. Pop cultural divorce lawyers emerge as manipulative, conniving, materialistic, self-interested, lusty, and narcissistic. The prototypical portrayal, the culture industry assumes in an unreflective, unsystematic way, will resonate with viewers and, in particular, their attitudes about divorce lawyers. Commercial success, after all, is always the industry’s first goal.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

Another section of the PCBA (Popular Culture Bar Association) identified.

The Court of Chancery, Inheritance, and Policy in the Eighteenth Century

Adam S. Hofri-Winogradow, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Faculty of Law, has published Parents, Children and Property in the Late Eighteenth Century Chancery in volume 32 of the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (2012). Here is the abstract.

The late eighteenth century court of Chancery established a balance between the respective interests of parents and their children in the family’s property. The court required parents, especially fathers, to themselves provide for the maintenance and education of their minor children, even where money was made available for these purposes from a non-parental source. It prevented parents from intercepting gifts given to their children by third parties. It permitted parents, however, to make their children's entitlements to marriage portions conditional, for children marrying before majority, on the children's choice of spouse being consented to by a parent or parental surrogate. Chancery’s overall intergenerational policy was notably anti-dynastic: it made sure that younger generations, specifically those just reaching adulthood, marriage and parenthood, were endowed with sufficient property to give them at least a measure of independence from their elders, and some power over their own children.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.