In this volume, Professor Deakin and Professor Pistor include those key articles which highlight the major contributions to, but also the inherent limits of, the legal origin literature. They consider the merits of this approach in the context of three fields of inquiry: the study of comparative law; the analysis of the relation between law and markets; and the understanding of the role of legal systems in social ordering.

In their thought-provoking new introduction, the editors discuss the modifications to the original legal origin hypothesis over time and point the way for the future development of this influential, yet controversial, theory.