Topic · Legal and Constitutional Studies
Most cited papers in Legal and Constitutional Studies
What are the most cited papers in Legal and Constitutional Studies?
The most cited paper in Legal and Constitutional Studies is "The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy." (James Edward Meade, J. M. Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, 1963), with 3,471 citations. Next come "Incomplete Contracts and Renegotiation" (1,942) and "Auditor independence, ‘low balling’, and disclosure regulation" (1,761).
Showing 50 of 98 papers. Every paper with more than 321 citations is listed.
| # | Paper | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy. James Edward Meade, J. M. Buchanan, Gordon Tullock · The Economic Journal | Mar 1963 | 3,471 |
| 2 | Incomplete Contracts and Renegotiation Oliver Hart, John Hardman Moore · Econometrica | Jul 1988 | 1,942 |
| 3 | Auditor independence, ‘low balling’, and disclosure regulation Linda DeAngelo · Journal of Accounting and Economics | Aug 1981 | 1,761 |
| 4 | Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff Russell Keat · Philosophical Books | 1980 | 1,597 |
| 5 | Federalism as a Commitment to Preserving Market Incentives Yingyi Qian, Barry R. Weingast · The Journal of Economic Perspectives | Nov 1997 | 1,519 |
| 6 | The Law of Group Polarization Cass Robert Sunstein · Journal of Political Philosophy | Jun 2002 | 1,377 |
| 7 | Libertarian Paternalism Is Not an Oxymoron Cass Robert Sunstein, Richard H. Thaler · The University of Chicago Law Review | 2003 | 1,332 |
| 8 | A Behavioral Approach to Law and Economics Christine Jolls, Cass Robert Sunstein, Richard H. Thaler · Stanford Law Review | May 1998 | 1,256 |
| 9 | Separation of Powers and Political Accountability Tomas Persson, Gérard Roland, Guido Tabellini · The Quarterly Journal of Economics | Nov 1997 | 1,218 |
| 10 | The Economic Theory of Public Enforcement of Law Maria Polinsky, Steven Shavell · Journal of Economic Literature | Mar 2000 | 1,200 |
| 11 | Social Norms and Social Roles Cass Robert Sunstein · Columbia Law Review | May 1996 | 1,183 |
| 12 | The Idea Of An Overlapping Consensus John Rawls · Oxford Journal of Legal Studies | 1987 | 1,075 |
| 13 | Political Institutions: The Neglected Side of the Story Terry M. Moe · The Journal of Law Economics and Organization | 1990 | 1,069 |
| 14 | A Team Production Theory of Corporate Law Margaret M. Blair, Lynn A. Stout · Virginia Law Review | Mar 1999 | 990 |
| 15 | The Politician and the Judge: Accountability in Government Eric S. Maskin, Jean Tirole · American Economic Review | Sep 2004 | 929 |
| 16 | What Do Judges and Justices Maximize? (The Same Thing Everybody Else Does) Richard A. Posner · Supreme Court Economic Review | 1993 | 898 |
| 17 | The Institutional Foundations of Committee Power Kenneth A. Shepsle, Barry R. Weingast · American Political Science Review | Mar 1987 | 830 |
| 18 | The crisis of fair-value accounting: Making sense of the recent debate Christian Laux, Christian Leuz · Accounting Organizations and Society | 22 May 2009 | 829 |
| 19 | Human Decisions and Machine Predictions Jon Kleinberg, Himabindu Lakkaraju, Jure Leskovec et al. · The Quarterly Journal of Economics | 24 Aug 2017 | 813 |
| 20 | RENT SEEKING: A SURVEY Robert D. Tollison · Kyklos | Nov 1982 | 798 |
| 21 | Structure-induced equilibrium and legislative choice Kenneth A. Shepsle, Barry R. Weingast · Public Choice | 1981 | 796 |
| 22 | Social Justice: Outcome and Procedure Tom R. Tyler · International Journal of Psychology | Apr 2000 | 780 |
| 23 | Economic Analysis of Accident Law. Roger Bowles, Steven Shavell · The Economic Journal | Jun 1989 | 776 |
| 24 | Convicting the Innocent: The Inferiority of Unanimous Jury Verdicts under Strategic Voting Timothy J. Feddersen, Wolfgang Pesendorfer · American Political Science Review | Mar 1998 | 756 |
| 25 | Ideological Values and the Votes of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Jeffrey A. Segal, Albert D. Cover · American Political Science Review | Jun 1989 | 753 |
| 26 | On the Legitimacy of National High Courts James L. Gibson, Gregory A. Caldeira, Vanessa A. Baird · American Political Science Review | Jun 1998 | 706 |
| 27 | Judicial Checks and Balances Rafael La Porta, Florencio López‐de‐Silanes, Cristian Pop‐Eleches et al. · Journal of Political Economy | 30 Mar 2004 | 689 |
| 28 | Retrospective Voting Reconsidered Andrew Healy, Neil A. Malhotra · Annual Review of Political Science | 2 Mar 2013 | 683 |
| 29 | An Economic Approach to Legal Procedure and Judicial Administration Richard A. Posner · The Journal of Legal Studies | Jun 1973 | 682 |
| 30 | A Constitution for Knaves Crowds out Civic Virtues Bruno S. Frey · The Economic Journal | Jul 1997 | 658 |
| 31 | The Independent Judiciary in an Interest-Group Perspective William M. Landes, Richard A. Posner · The Journal of Law and Economics | Dec 1975 | 648 |
| 32 | Aggregating Sets of Judgments: An Impossibility Result Christian List, Philip N. Pettit · Economics and Philosophy | 14 Mar 2002 | 636 |
| 33 | The Costs of Organization Scott E. Masten, James W. Meehan, Edward A. Snyder · The Journal of Law Economics and Organization | 1991 | 601 |
| 34 | The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime J. J. Donohue, Steven D. Levitt · The Quarterly Journal of Economics | May 2001 | 599 |
| 35 | Organized Interests and American Democracy. By Kay Lehman Schlozman and John T. Tierney. (New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Pp. xix + 448. $12.00, paper.) John Mark Hansen · American Political Science Review | Dec 1986 | 597 |
| 36 | The Effects of Pre-Trial Detention on Conviction, Future Crime, and Employment: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges Will Dobbie, Jacob Goldin, Crystal Yang · American Economic Review | 26 Jan 2018 | 577 |
| 37 | Forward Integration into Distribution: An Empirical Test of Transaction Cost Analysis George John, Barton A. Weitz · The Journal of Law Economics and Organization | 1988 | 564 |
| 38 | Political Control Versus Expertise: Congressional Choices about Administrative Procedures Kathleen Bawn · American Political Science Review | Mar 1995 | 559 |
| 39 | Reactions to procedural injustice in payment distributions: Do the means justify the ends? Jerald Greenberg · Journal of Applied Psychology | Feb 1987 | 531 |
| 40 | The domain of constitutional economics James McGill Buchanan · Constitutional Political Economy | Dec 1990 | 499 |
| 41 | It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism Gerald M. Pomper · Political Science Quarterly | 2013 | 496 |
| 42 | Regulatory Competition and Environmental Enforcement: Is There a Race to the Bottom? David M. Konisky · American Journal of Political Science | Oct 2007 | 486 |
| 43 | The Endurance of National Constitutions Tom Ginsburg, Zachary Elkins, James Melton · SSRN Electronic Journal | 2012 | 465 |
| 44 | The Goals and Promise of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act John Coates · The Journal of Economic Perspectives | 2007 | 455 |
| 45 | Organized Interests and Agenda Setting in the U.S. Supreme Court Gregory A. Caldeira, John R. Wright · American Political Science Review | Dec 1988 | 444 |
| 46 | Regulation and Its Reform, by Stephen Breyer James W. Vaupel · Political Science Quarterly | 1983 | 443 |
| 47 | Law and Behavioral Science: Removing the Rationality Assumption from Law and Economics Russell B. Korobkin, Thomas S. Ulen · California Law Review | Jul 2000 | 439 |
| 48 | LAW, LEGISLATION AND LIBERTY John Cottingham · Philosophical Books | 1978 | 429 |
| 49 | The Trouble with Algorithmic Decisions Tal Zarsky · Science Technology & Human Values | 14 Oct 2015 | 424 |
| 50 | Plea Bargaining outside the Shadow of Trial Stephanos Bibas · Harvard Law Review | Jun 2004 | 422 |
Citations are OpenAlex's own counts, from its 2026-09-23 snapshot, so the ranking can differ from Google Scholar or Web of Science. A paper is listed for a field when OpenAlex files it under one of the field's topics; retracted papers and papers whose citation count cannot be traced to citing works are left out, and a preprint and the article it became are shown once. Release dates are OpenAlex's: where a source gave only a month or a year, that is what is shown. How the lists are chosen.