Please cite this article in press as: Leeson, P.T., Suarez, P.A., An economic analysis of Magna Carta. International Review of Law and Economics (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.irle.2016.05.001 ARTICLE IN PRESS G Model IRL-5731; No. of Pages 7 International Review of Law and Economics xxx (2016) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Review of Law and Economics An economic analysis of Magna Carta  Peter T. Leeson * , Paola A. Suarez Department of Economics, George Mason University, MS 3G4, Fairfax, VA 22030, United States a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 13 January 2016 Accepted 24 May 2016 Available online xxx Keywords: Magna Carta Constitutions Self-enforcement a b s t r a c t This paper uses the economic approach to self-enforcing constitutions to analyze Magna Carta and uses Magna Carta to evaluate the economic approach to self-enforcing constitutions. We find that Magna Carta in its reissued, but not original, incarnation satisfied each of the conditions necessary for constitutional self-enforcement according to that approach and thus effectively constrained government. Our analysis illuminates Magna Carta’s initial failure to constrain government, helps explain its ultimate success in doing so, and furnishes supportive evidence for the economic approach to self-enforcing constitutions. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction England’s Magna Carta established a foundation of constitution- ally constrained government that remains standing 800 years later. According to the most popular explanation for this success, Magna Carta succeeded in constraining government because it coincided with a long period of English government by council (see, for instance, Maddicott, 2010). Between 1189 and 1199, under Richard I, who spent much of his reign abroad on crusade or in captivity, and then again after 1216, under Henry III, who did not reach the age of majority until 1227, England was ruled largely by the consent and consensus of nobles, clerics, and courtiers rather than by a king. By the time of Magna Carta (1215–1225), England therefore had significant experience under conciliar government, magnates were accustomed to participating regularly in the kingdom’s governance, and citizens were ready to defend their right to do so. There is, however, an important problem with this explanation for Magna Carta’s success in constraining government: in its origi- nal incarnation, Magna Carta abysmally failed to do so. Only 90 days after the Charter of 1215 was solemnized, King John had brushed aside its limits on his authority and England descended again into civil war. It was not Magna Carta in general that succeeded in constraining government, but rather reissued Magna Carta, culmi- nating in the Charter of 1225.  This paper was prepared for a conference on “800 Years of Magna Carta” at the Classical Liberal Institute at New York University School of Law, November 6–7, 2015. We thank the Institute for financial support and conference participants for helpful comments and suggestions. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: PLeeson@GMU.edu (P.T. Leeson), PSuarez@GMU.edu (P.A. Suarez). This paper develops an alternative explanation for Magna Carta’s (eventual) success in constraining government grounded in economic analysis. We use the economic approach to self-enforcing constitutions to analyze Magna Carta and use Magna Carta to eval- uate the economic approach to self-enforcing constitutions. This approach highlights that in order to be enforced at all, constitutions must be self-enforcing, and considers the conditions under which this may be possible (see, for instance, Hardin, 1989; Ordeshook, 1992; Chen and Ordeshook, 1994; Weingast, 1995, 1997, 2004; de Figueiredo and Weingast, 2005; de Figueiredo et al., 2007; Leeson, 2011; Mittal and Weingast, 2013). Although the economic approach to self-enforcing constitutions is not homogenous, it broadly suggests the necessity of satisfy- ing three conditions to render a constitution self-enforcing and thus the governmental constraints it promises effective. To be self- enforcing, constitutions must: (1) publicly establish sufficiently clear limits on rulers’ authority; (2) reflect mutually beneficial exchanges between rulers and the citizens who contract them; and (3) inclusively advance the interests of the citizenry’s polit- ically important groups. We elaborate the logic underlying these conditions and ask whether they were satisfied by Magna Carta. Existing work in the literature on self-enforcing political institu- tions has analyzed such institutions in the context of, for example, England’s Revolution Settlement, the Articles of Confederation, the United States Constitution, the Missouri Compromise, politi- cal arrangements in medieval Genoa, and those in contemporary China, Spain, and Russia (see, for instance, North and Weingast, 1989; Weingast, 1995, 1997, 2004; Greif, 1998; de Figueiredo and Weingast, 2005; de Figueiredo et al., 2007; Mittal and Weingast, 2013). No work, however, has used the economic approach to self-enforcing constitutions to analyze Magna Carta. Our paper con- tributes to this literature by doing so. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.irle.2016.05.001 0144-8188/© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.