Paper Abstract
32. Holger Spamann, Large-Sample Quantitative Research Designs for Comparative Law?, 9/2009; subsequently published in American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. LVII, Fall 2009, 797-810.
Abstract: A substantial body of comparative legal scholarship considers statements applicable to large, conceptually infinite numbers of countries. Such statements gain in credibility if they are supported by evidence from large samples of countries. Processing such vast evidence requires quantitative methods. Designing the requisite numerical measures of law is not straightforward, but an important insight from statistics suggests that this problem can be overcome by appropriate research design. While in practice considering more countries comes at the expense of less information per country, on balance large sample, quantitative research designs promise to yield interesting insights for comparative law.