The Uses of History in Law and economics Ron harris During the last quarter of the twentieth century, the humanities and social sciences have turned toward history something that culminated in the 1990s, and this phenomenon was evident in law as well. However until recently law and economics, the most infuential post-World War ll jurisprudential movement, was a-historical in its methodology and research agenda. The first objective of this article is to call attention to this neglected characteristic of law and economics and to explain its causes by analyzing its intellectual origins, its methodological causes, and the nature of its interaction with other sub-fields of law of ond objective of the article is to identifj a change-in-the-making and its characteristics. Law and economics scholars have turned to history more often and for new purposes in recent years. The article identifies the set offactors that brought about this turn to history. These factors include: a growing willingness to conduct empirical research, the integration of public choice analysis Ahich ofren led to the study of past legislation) into mainstream law and economics: preliminary comparative law and economics studies:a growing interaction between law and economics and new institutional School of Law, Tel Aviv University. I thank Lucian Bebchuk, Terry Fisher, Joshua Getzler, Ariela Gross, Alon Harel, Laura Kalman, Dan Klerman, Timur Kuran, David Lieberman, Assaf Likhovski, Andrei Marmor, Geoffrey Miller, Eben Moglen Porat, Daniel Spulber, Christopher Tomlins, Jenny Wahl, Omri Yadlin, and the participants at the ASLH annual meeting at Princeton and in the Writing Legal History Conference sponsored by the Cegla Center, Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law, for advice, assistance, and thoughtful comments at various stages of this project. I thank Nimrod Aviad, Jacob Kastiel, and Itai Rabinowitz for their excellent research assistance and Dana Rothman for the high level of editingThe Uses of History in Law and Economics Ron Harris* During the last quarter of the twentieth century, the humanities and social sciences have turned toward history, something that culminated in the 1990s, and this phenomenon was evident in law as well. However, until recently, law and economics, the most influential post-World War II jurisprudential movement, was a-historical in its methodology and research agenda. The first objective of this article is to call attention to this neglected characteristic of law and economics and to explain its causes by analyzing its intellectual origins, its methodological causes, and the nature of its interaction with other sub-fields of law and of economics. The second objective of the article is to identify a change-in-the-making and its characteristics. Law and economics scholars have turned to history more often and for new purposes in recent years. The article identifies the set of factors that brought about this turn to history. These factors include: a growing willingness to conduct empirical research; the integration of public choice analysis (which often led to the study of past legislation) into mainstream law and economics; preliminary comparative law and economics studies; a growing interaction between law and economics and new institutional * School of Law, Tel Aviv University. I thank Lucian Bebchuk, Terry Fisher, Joshua Getzler, Ariela Gross, Alon Harel, Laura Kalman, Dan Klerman, Timur Kuran, David Lieberman, Assaf Likhovski, Andrei Marmor, Geoffrey Miller, Eben Moglen, Ariel Porat, Daniel Spulber, Christopher Tomlins, Jenny Wahl, Omri Yadlin, and the participants at the ASLH annual meeting at Princeton and in the Writing Legal History Conference sponsored by the Cegla Center, Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law, for advice, assistance, and thoughtful comments at various stages of this project. I thank Nimrod Aviad, Jacob Kastiel, and Itai Rabinowitz for their excellent research assistance and Dana Rothman for the high level of editing