Large Sample, Quantitative Research Designs for Comparative Law?

Abstract:     
A substantial body of comparative legal scholarship considers statements applicable to large, conceptually infinite numbers of countries. Such statements gain in credibility if they are supported by evidence from large samples of countries. Processing such vast evidence requires quantitative methods. Designing the requisite numerical measures of law is not straightforward, but an important insight from statistics suggests that this problem can be overcome by appropriate research design. While in practice considering more countries comes at the expense of less information per country, on balance large sample, quantitative research designs promise to yield interesting insights for comparative law.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 15

Keywords: comparative law, large-N studies, quantitative methods, statistics, econometrics, Doing Business, legal origins

JEL Classification: B40, K00, P50

Accepted Paper Series