The Economics of Ottoman Justice
Settlement and Trial in the Sharia Courts

'The scholarship of Coşgel and Ergene is astonishing, deep in the archives but with salient comparisons to other parts of the Empire and the world, subtle in legal knowledge but penetrating in game theory. The book melds the intellectual values of history and of economics, practicing quantitative economic history with a humanistic sensibility. Coşgel and Ergene, indeed, pioneer a legal 'humanomic' history - economics with the people left in, legal history with the economics left in, history with all the facts left in, qualitative and quantitative.' Deirdre N. McCloskey, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Economics and of History, Professor Emerita of English and of Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago

'In this eye-opening study … the authors demonstrate the value of an interdisciplinary approach, as well as the power of the tools of economics to shed new and important light on how the legal system worked … The use of quantitative methods and models from Law-and Economics pays off richly. Anyone interested in how institutions worked in the past to enforce contracts and property rights should read this book.' Joel Mokyr, Northwestern University, author of A Culture of Growth: Origins of the Modern Economy (Princeton, 2016)

'Metin Coşgel and Boğaç Ergene masterfully combine the insights from the law and economics literature with the methods of history and quantitative analysis to study the court documents and legal practice … The result is a well written and path-breaking book.' Şevket Pamuk, Bogaziçi (Bosphorus) University, Turkey

'Using the [court records] of Kastamonu, and with singular clarity, historian Boğaç Ergene and economist Metin Coşgel have established a quantitative template for the study of the impact of status and wealth on access and resolution in the Ottoman courts of the 18th century.' Virginia H. Aksan, McMaster University

'In The Economics of Ottoman Justice, Cosgel and Ergene put Law and Economics insights to excellent use in analyzing data from an Ottoman court. Combine that with a historian's broad and deep appreciation for social and cultural context, and this book represents a model for how to do truly interdisciplinary scholarship.' Peter Siegelman, University of Connecticut Law School