ABOUT THE CENTER FOR THE ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF LAW

The Center for the Economic Analysis of Law (CEAL) is a non-profit research institute that provides legal and economic analysis of public policy issues. It emphasizes the economic analysis of legal policy options and the development of alternative legal approaches that have more desirable economic consequences. CEAL undertakes these projects under contract with governments, international agencies, and non-governmental bodies or, where appropriate, from its own resources. CEAL has undertaken projects with organizations including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Inter-American Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, U.S. Library of Congress (GLIN), Harvard Law School; and with the governments of Honduras, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Romania, Jamaica, Ukraine, and El Salvador.

CEAL's work program focuses on the legal and regulatory framework for property rights, including secured transactions, legal impediments to private sector development, environmental law, and on the development of indicators of reform in these areas.

n  Lending and Access to Credit

This work includes the legal and regulatory environment for secured loans and guarantees -- using both personal property and real estate as collateral. As extensions of this work, CEAL plans efforts on the impact of the legal and regulatory environment on access to credit by the poor; the effects of laws and regulations on investment and production decisions that affect land use, conservation, and timber; and the modernization and linking of legal registry systems.

CEAL has mounted its Model Filing Archive for Secured Transactions, a system that has been implemented, with World Bank support, in Romania.

n  Commercial Registration

In these projects, CEAL analyzes the public policy issues involved in different legal and regulatory frameworks for the registration of businesses. Successful reforms simplify business creation, facilitate investment, and promote the formalization of enterprises previously operating without legal sanction. CEAL's emphasis is on legal systems of commercial registration that achieve sound economic objectives and that permit technically advanced solutions to the problems of registration, including the one-stop shop.

n  Civil Registration

Civil registration systems crucially affect the ability of citizens to participate in the formal economic system in their countries, as well as to vote. CEAL's approach applies legal and economic research together with programming and systems analysis that permit achieving key public policy objectives in economically sound ways, while using the full range of current technologies.

n  Environmental Law

Property rights and local regulations and their municipal institutional framework affect the application of environmental laws that protect threatened, endangered, and sensitive species. CEAL provides a hands-on analysis of these legal barriers in Patagonia and the interventions that can be actionable in the near term.

The CEAL Method

CEAL's approach broadly rests on the view that legal solutions must be subject at each stage of drafting to a careful economic analysis of their consequences in the country setting. While the desirability of different legal approaches often cannot be settled by their economic consequences, political consensus can typically be achieved more rapidly when the public policy consequences of each approach are well understood. Similarly, CEAL examines the law and technical options simultaneously because the barrier to many new technologies arises mainly from legal impediments.

CEAL's Research Associates

Eugenia Bec, international consultant, CEAL Patagonia region

Ronald C.C. Cuming, Professor Law, University of Saskatchewan
Fernando Cantuarias Salaverry, Dean of the Law School, Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas
Alejandro Garro, Professor of Law, Columbia University
Roberto A. Muguillo, Mascheroni, Couso & Muguillo, Buenos Aires
Nuria de la Pena, Attorney, Washington, DC (Director of Legal Operations and Acting President)
Peter A. Winship, Professor of Law, Southern Methodist University

Country Experience

CEAL and its Associates have completed projects in these countries: Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Bulgaria, China, Colombia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ecuador, Eritrea, Fiji, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua-New Guinea, Peru, Poland, Romania, Solomon Islands, Tajikistan, Thailand, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, and Viet Nam.

Further Information:

For further information about CEAL, contact us by E-mail at ceal@ceal.org. Many of CEAL's publications and draft laws are available at this website (see link at top of page).

Center for the Economic Analysis of Law
Tel. (202) 646-1787
Fax (202) 966-1789