科斯定理对中国法学的启示

The Enlightening of Coase Theorem on Legal Science of China

科斯定理源于科斯的论文《社会成本问题》,由于其实现了法学与经济学分析的结合,故奠定了现代法经济学的基础。科斯定理作为一个开放式的理论体系,贯穿于法经济学的各个领域,为传统法学难以解决的一些问题提供了新的解决方法和思路。中国法学由于继受罗马法的传统,强调公法与私法的划分和权利与义务的严格界定,这使得一些法律问题的解释越来越模糊不清,如对契约自由原则和强制缔约现象的解释。科斯定理作为法经济学中的一个核心思维方式能够对法学中的这些问题提供有益的解释。

Coase theorem originates from the famous article by Coase—'The Problem of Social Cost'.It facilitates the integration of legal and economic analy- sis and lays the foundation of modern law and economics.As an open ended model of thinking,the idea of Coase theorem is reflected in various areas of law and eco- nomics,providing new insights into traditional ideas of law.Lawyers in China gen- erally adopts the idea of Roman law which tends to rigidly divide laws into private laws and public laws and rigorously demarcate rights and liabilities,which makes it more and more ambiguous to interpret some legal phenomena such as the freedom of contracting and compulsory contracting.The idea of coase theorem might provide some insight into these problems.