Henry Manne: Intellectual Entrepreneur

Abstract

This Chapter in the book Pioneers of Law and Economics discusses the remarkable career of Henry Manne. Writing when there was a theory vacuum in legal academia, Manne breathed life into corporate law by using economic principles to formulate a sweeping new theory of the corporation. Then he took his show on the road with seminars, programs and ultimately a law school to create a market for his ideas. The Chapter shows that Manne was an entrepreneur not only in bringing people and ideas together, but also in the Schumpeterian sense Manne discussed in his work on insider trading - an active participant in the creative destruction of the existing paradigm rather than merely a manager of existing ideas. Manne's career demonstrates that, under the right conditions, a single scholar can leave noticeable ripples in the stream of intellectual history. By demonstrating that corporations, and by inference other important institutions, are best analyzed in market terms, and by creating an intellectual market for these and other economic ideas, Manne changed the way scholars, judges, regulators and others think about the role of law in society.

JEL Classification: K10, K20, K21, K22