Basic Principles of Property Law: A Comparative Legal and Economic Introduction

Front Cover
Bloomsbury Academic, Jan 30, 2000 - Business & Economics - 211 pages

The first attempt to address comparative property law in a common integrative framework, this study discusses German, Italian, French, American, and British property law as mere variations based upon a few fundamental themes through which these nations developed legal systems to provide responses to common economic problems and to set legal foundations for working markets. Basic Principles of Property Law was produced to offer a common framework for the discussion of the law of property within countries in transition, thus it has its basis, not on just one legal system, but on the institutional commonalties that make western property law a working market institution. It offers a major challenge to conventional thinking that in property law the differences between common law and civil law are so important that common core research is impossible.

Mattei hopes to guide the reader to think comparatively about property by shedding many preconceived formalistic abstractions. The substance of property law, he argues, is much more common throughout the Western legal tradition than legal scholars would have us believe. Through a set format and accessible writing, this book looks at national legal traditions as responses to common economic problems. It sets the foundations for further much needed integrative comparative legal research in the domain of property law.

About the author (2000)

UGO MATTEI is Alfred and Hanna Fromm Professor of Law and Economics at the University of California, Hastings, and Professore Ordinario in Turin, Italy. He teaches Civil Law, Comparative Law, and Law and Economics. His English language publications include many articles and one book, Comparative Law and Economics (1997).

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