The Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project brings together a network of scholars, practitioners, and students working to develop innovative intellectual, pedagogical, and political interventions to advance the study of political economy and law. Our work is rooted in the insight that politics and the economy cannot be separated and that both are constructed in essential respects by law. We believe that developments over the last several decades in legal scholarship and policy helped to facilitate rising inequality and precarity, political alienation, the entrenchment of racial hierarchies and intersectional exploitation, and ecological and social catastrophe. We aim to help reverse these trends by supporting scholarly work that maps where we have gone wrong, and that develops ideas and proposals to democratize our political economy and build a more just, equal, and sustainable future.
LPE project
Learn
A variety of resources designed to help faculty and students learn more about LPE, including syllabi from LPE and LPE-related courses, primers on topics such as neoliberalism and legal realism, as well as videos from a number of events we have held over the last year.
Go to LearnEngage
Information about the amazing work being done by LPE student groups, as well as guidance on starting a student group on your own campus! A bureau of affiliated professors and practitioners designed to help faculty and students to bring LPE scholars to their campuses!
Go to EngageEvents
A compendium of upcoming (and past) events put on by the LPE Project, LPE student groups, and other organizations in the LPE ecosystem.
Go to Events
You Didn’t Earn That
When defending income inequality, high-earners often appeal to an old left-wing idea: that workers are entitled to the fruits of their labor and should be paid the value of their productive contribution. In complex economies, however, the size of any worker’s productive contribution depends on collective labor that the market systematically fails to credit.
Weekly Roundup: June 5
Richard Joyce assesses Mark Carney's speech at Davos, while Sarah Schindler and Kellen Zale discuss the abundance agenda's anti-tenancy blindspot. Plus, Tanzil Chowdhury on legislative supremacy in Great Britain, Aslı Bâli on the emerging world order, Sandeep Vaheesan and Claire Kelloway on the consolidation of the US food system, some straight facts about millionaire tax migration in New York, and the inaugural issue of Phenomenal World.
The Abundance Agenda’s Anti-Tenancy Blindspot
As policymakers pursue supply-side reforms to address rising housing costs, they must also confront a legal regime that affords tenants second-class status. Without confronting this anti-tenancy bias, abundance reforms risk producing more housing within the same inequitable framework.
Keeping the (Neoliberal) Sign in the Window: Carney at Davos
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was widely lauded for declaring the rules-based international order effectively dead and urging middle powers to build "what we claim to believe in.” Unfortunately, as quickly became apparent, what Carney believes in is the continuation of neoliberal capitalism.