For several years the Institute has placed a particular emphasis on the economic analysis of private international law.  This focus is occasioned not only by the potential of economic theory to explain the effects of legal norms on human behaviour and to provide criteria by which these effects can be evaluated, but additionally and primarily by the gap found in academic literature: even though the economic analysis of law has enjoyed a continually growing sphere of influence since the 1970’s – particularly in the United States but also in Europe and Asia – private international law has only to a small degree been an object of this discussion.  In spite of the immense significance to be attributed to the determination of the applicable law in a globally linked world and in a common market, economic studies of the provisions coordinating the interplay of various legal systems nonetheless continue to be absent.  Conventional works on the economic analysis of law dedicate at best a handful of pages to private international law.  Articles comment merely on isolated aspects of the topic and do not strive for a comprehensive analysis of the economic implications of private international law systems.  The sole treatise offering any genuine insight on the issue of economic theory and private international law hails from Australia and focuses primarily on Anglo-American law.  European law, undeniably quite distinct at least from its U.S. American counterpart, is hardly addressed – a phenomenom typified by the current literature.
 
It is within this context that the Institute endeavours to fill the observable gap in legal and economic scholarship and to generate a productive understanding of economic theory in respect of private international law in general and the emerging European private international law in particular.  It has made a first contribution to the debate with the publication of the volume “An Economic Analysis of Private International Law” (Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 2006). Edited by Jürgen Basedow and Toyshiuki Kono (University of Fukuoka, Japan) with the assistance of Giesela Rühl, the volume contains the papers presented at the first conference on the economic analysis of private international law which took place in Naoshima, Japan in 2005 and which addressed selected questions in international contract law, tort law and company law from an economic perspective.  In addition to the volume, the Institute is fostering the post-doctoral dissertation (Habilitationsschrift) of Giesela Rühl which is currently in preparation.  Her research examines the general potential of economic theory in view of the field and aims at developing general economic principles for private international law in general and for European private international law in particular.