法经济学视角下国家法的限度——民间规则与国家法关系的重新定位

The Bounds of Governmental Regulations:Re-delimiting the Governmental and Nongovernmental Regulations from the Perspective of Law and Economics

当下法学界存在一种较为普遍的看法,即民间法具有"乡土性"、"依附性"及"弥补性"特征。然而从法经济学的视角看,民间规则是通过私人自主博弈而实现的最优产权安排,只是由于存在交易成本而妨碍了利害关系人自主博弈的效果,国家立法的有限度地干预才成为必要。因此,依赖于利害关系人自主博弈和自我实施的民间规则,才是产权安排的理想状态,是整个社会规则的根本基础。国家法不应介入低交易成本条件下的私人自主博弈,在高交易成本条件下不可替代利害关系人自主博弈,并应避免公共选择对集体选择的替代和排挤。

Nowadays, it is popular in the Chinese jurisprudential circle to regard nongovernmental regulations as simple, provincial or subsidiary rules relative to governmental regulations. However, from the perspective of Law and Economics, nongovernmental regulations represent the optimal property rights arrangements realized via autono- mous gaming among interested parties. Intervention of the state becomes necessary only when the existence of trans- action costs impedes the efficient outcome of such game. Consequently, nongovernmental regulations should serve as the fundamentals of the social rules while state intervention has to be restricted to certain bounds so as not to dis- tort efficient rights allocation. When the transaction costs are low enough, governmental regulations should not in- terfere with games among interested parties. Even when the transaction costs are sufficiently high, governmental regulations should not be allowed to take the place of games among interested parties nor should public choice be allowed to crowd out or supplant collective choice.