Beer was a staple food in the Middle Ages and was brewed by monks. Over the centuries, an entire culture has developed in Germany around beer brewing, beer drinking, and the commercial serving of beer. This is also reflected in the diversity of beer types with 25 different beer styles and between 5,000 and 6,000 different types of beer in Germany alone. Moreover, special ‘beer gardens’ are popular places of consumption. The German Purity Laws date back to 1156 and were only lifted by the CJEU for imports.

This chapter provides insights from economic theory and empirical methods to determine if production of medical services in a firm is efficient. The concepts of a production function can indicate whether production is technically efficient and estimate the marginal contribution to revenue of each input (labor of different types, capital, etc.). With data on the prices or wages of these inputs, the manager can determine the profit-maximizing rate of use. A cost function can indicate whether there are economies of scale in quantity (somehow defined) and economies or diseconomies in scope. Examples from classic health economics literature are used to show that there was underuse of physician aides and other substitutes in office-based physician practices, that there are constant returns in scale in the production of hospital admissions, and that there are increased returns in emergency rooms. Caution in interpretation of variation in cost per unit output (of the type provided for Medicare in the Dartmouth Atlas) is offered.

This chapter introduces the problem of theorizing international organizations. It breaks down the problem to two parts: the structural relationship between international organizations and their members and conceptual relationship between these institutions and other entities in international law, including states and non-state actors. The first relationship concerns whether international organizations should be analyzed as legally distinct from their members. The second relationship relates to international organizations’ rights, obligations, and capacities in international law, assuming that they are legally distinguishable from their members. The chapter concludes by clarifying how advancing a doctrinal legal theory is understood by this book, as well as the methodology that will be employed in that regard.

Chapter 2 discusses Hegel’s understanding of the relationship between philosophy and reality, as well as the much-debated issue of whether the Philosophy of Right should be read as a normative enterprise. Focusing on the methodological argument outlined in the work’s preface and introduction, the chapter argues that Hegel is committed to a critical reconstruction of received reality, aimed at revealing the norms and institutions that best embody and promote human freedom. Moreover, it is claimed that this critical effort comprises a conceptual and a temporal dimension, corresponding to two different argumentative moments: the progression leading from the stage of ‘abstract right’ to that of the state, which deals with the immanent development of the concept of freedom, and the book’s final section, ‘world history’, which charts the historical actualization of the concept of freedom. While most interpreters tend to focus on the former dimension, the chapter shows that the latter is just as important to understand Hegel’s overall position.

The Postscript seeks to provide a practical illustration of beer recipe design, ingredient selection, and the brewing process. To that end, a beer was designed and brewed specifically for this book – the ‘Law Beer’. The aim was for this beer to represent something from each of the countries in which the six authors live – Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, and Germany. Each of these countries has made significant contributions to the world of beer. The recipe uese malt from Germany, yeast from Belgium, hot side hops from the Czech Republic, and cold side hops from Australia. The Postscript combines a description of this beer and the process involved, with a range of references to laws that have shaped aspects of the ingredients chosen for this beer.

The Statute of Uses enacted radical reform which can still be felt across the common law world. It was from exceptions to the statute’s execution of uses to perform last wills that the modern trust emerged. Our understanding of the passage of the statute has been shaped by the survival of several draft bills and ancillary documents. It has been argued that a draft bill introduced in 1529 was rejected by the Commons in March 1532. This in turn inspired the landmark litigation in Dacre’s Case (1533–35), which paved the way for the subsequent enactment of the Statute of Uses. This chapter challenges that orthodox position by demonstrating that there were in fact three early drafts which were considered. It then considers what this tells us about the role of the crown, parliament and the courts during this pivotal period in our legal history.

This chapter critiques private property on four grounds. First, private property pushes resources into the hands of those who have more at the expense of those who have less. This arises because wealthier people are willing to pay more for normal goods so they tend to bid successfully for them, and because their wealth allows them to hold out for a larger share of the gains from trade. Second, private property is, in fact, allocatively inefficient. This is because the use of willingness to pay as an allocational technology means that the allocation of property is partially driven by ability to pay rather than a purchaser’s greater productive efficiency. Private property is also allocatively inefficient due to the monopoly power that it places in the hands of owners. Third, the regressivity of private property creates a powerful propertied class that can come to dominate the political system. Finally, both the regressivity and the inefficiency of private property have become even more stark in the internet era because markets which already have strong network effects and are vulnerable to domination by monopolists exacerbate both features.

The book’s introduction explains the history of thought experiments in philosophy. It also describes Hans Christian Ørsted’s interactions with Kierkegaard and his influence on Kierkegaard’s concept of Tankeexperiment. The introduction outlines the ways in which thought experiments make thoughts meaningful by providing immediate presentations.

This chapter provides economic explanations of the level of total national health expenditures in the US and of population health outcomes. It helps managers explain the role of wage differences with other countries and the impact of income inequality and racism on spending and outcomes. Wages of healthcare workers are much higher in the US than abroad. The healthcare GDP share has stabilized after growing for many years, but beneficial yet costly new technology still matters for cost and health growth. Metrics of relative health spending are distorted by exchange rate mismeasurement. Evidence on the fraction of total spending that is wasteful is very uncertain because no managerial or policy actions as yet have been proven to reduce waste in ways that do more good than harm. Changes in insurance and pricing policy have the highest promise for improvement.

A prevalent idea in scholarship on Athenian politics of the classical period is the assumption, based on figures like Pericles and Demosthenes, that political leadership depended on the ability to give good advice and communicate well with fellow citizens in the Council and Assembly. Without necessarily challenging this assumption, the present chapter focuses on a mechanism for attaining political leadership that has received less attention: gift-giving to both individual citizens and the entire community. Athenians with political ambitions built networks of followers (clients) through private gifts, but the phenomenon has not been fully appreciated because of the supposition that nothing comparable to the Roman patron/client relationship existed in the Greek polis. This chapter focuses on the case of Demosthenes.

10.1 [675] We have, I believe, given an account of the shadow in the law that is precise, since the enemy of the truth attempted – I do not know how – to persecute us and bizarrely brings the indictment of lawlessness against people who, more than anyone else, have made a firm determination to fulfill those divine laws in a more rational and precise manner than those who are conversant with the bare types alone. But since he takes us to task for absolutely everything we say and do, observe how he plunges us, so to speak, into yet more accusations, and says we stand in opposition even to the holy mystagogues themselves and have given no regard to the apostolic tradition, but instead have turned wherever our whim might carry us – and what’s more, without being taken to task for it! For he again writes as follows:1 [676]

This chapter explores the roles of different generations of lawyers in Estonia’s post-1991 democratic transformation. Focused on young, progressive lawyers familiar with Western legal culture and established leaders educated under the Soviet regime, the study draws on extensive interviews and document analysis to trace how these actors shaped the nation’s transition from Soviet legal structures to a contemporary democratic framework. The findings highlight the critical importance of individual efforts in redefining legal practices, emphasising the dual impact of innovative youth and experienced mentors in driving significant legal and institutional reforms. The study enhances understanding of the dynamics of legal transitions in post-Soviet states, highlighting the essential blend of innovation and experience necessary for successful legal reform.

Cinema as a mirror of postrevolutionary cultural negotiations. After the revolution, Iranian cinema becomes a shared format for national self-representation. Despite censorship and practical constraints, filmmaking developed a coded but locally recognizable language to explore tensions around class, region, gender, history, and politics. Acquiescing to censorship requirement that women actors never unveil, even when represented in private alone or with other women, filmmakers and audiences found themselves undermining the dramatic artifice of the cinematic fourth wall, the convention of invisible, passive dramatic observation taken for granted in modern filmmaking. Instead, audiences became collaborators of cultural meaning, acknowledging cinematic artifice and the possibilities of symbolic representation. Canny directors involved their viewers as conscious partners in a community of interpretation, pushing the limits of cultural critique. These self-reflexive Iranian films provide the most accurate format for reflecting on postrevolutionary national and political developments, making postrevolutionary Iranian cinema a mirror for national subjectivity and society.

A theoretical intervention into the challenge of thinking through the complexities of life, in Iran or elsewhere. Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault offer us a model of thinking as a practice. Each attempted one project in which they were thinking systematically about ongoing events, and offering that thinking as a contribution to public understanding. Arendt traveled to Jerusalem to observe the Adolf Eichmann trial, and her contemporaneous writing was published in The New Yorker magazine. Foucault traveled to Iran to observe the early stages of the revolution, and his contemporaneous writing was published (mostly) in the Corriere della Sera newspaper. These two projects have commonly been regarded as their author’s most controversial and have often been ignored or used to denigrate the writer’s entire theoretical oeuvre. Yet they offer compelling models of thinking as a practice that critically links the self and the world. Rescuing theory from the confines of academic specialization restores it, and us, to the possibility of thinking as a practice of freedom, and freedom as the daily possibility of beginning anew.