Andrzej Rapaczynski

Andrzej

Rapaczynski

Daniel G. Ross Professor of Law, Joseph Solomon Professor of Wills, Trusts and Estate Planning

Andrzej Rapaczynski is Daniel G. Ross of Law and Joseph Solomon Professor of Wills, Trusts, and Estate Planning at Columbia Law School. His work lies in the interstices of law, economics, philosophy, and political theory.

Rapaczynski’s major fields of interest are constitutional law, torts, property, trusts and estates, and comparative corporate governance. He has published in the areas of constitutional law, comparative law, institutional economics, and political philosophy.

With an interdisciplinary background, Rapaczynski is also known for his research in the 1990s on the post-communist transition in eastern Europe. He co-authored a survey of a wide sample of firms in eastern Europe, which yielded important evidence on the impact of ownership on firm performance. He was an expert adviser to the parliaments of Poland and the Russian Federation on the drafting of new constitutions and advised a number of governments on their policies of privatization.

Before coming to the Law School, Rapaczynski was assistant professor of philosophy at Yale University from 1974 to 1979 and a visiting assistant professor of philosophy at Princeton University from 1977 to 1978. Rapaczynski was a visiting scholar in Heidelberg and Starnberg (Germany) in 1976, and a visiting professor at Yale Law School in 1999/2000. Between 1993 and 1996, he was a research professor of economics at the Central European University in Budapest.

Education

J.D., Yale University, 1982
Ph.D., Columbia University, 1974
B.A. (equivalent), University of Warsaw, 1968

Areas of Expertise

Constitutional law
Torts
Trusts and estates
Institutional economics
Political philosophy

Publications

Selected Publications

Capitalism with a Comrade’s Face; Studies in the Postcommunist Transition, (with Roman Frydman and Kenneth Murphy), Central European University Press, Budapest, London, New York, 1998
Privatization in Eastern Europe: Is the State Withering Away?, (with Roman Frydman), Central European University Press, Budapest, London, New York, 1994, (translated into Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, and Lithuanian)
The Privatization Process in Central Europe, (with Roman Frydman, John Earle, et al.), Central European University Press, Budapest, London, 1993 (“Choice” Magazine’s Outstanding Academic Book Award for 1993; translated into Serbian, Polish, Romanian, and Ukrainian)
Nature and Politics; Liberalism in the Philosophies of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, Cornell University Press, 1987
“The Moral Significance of Economic Life,” Capitalism and Society, Vol. 8, (2) 2013
“Entrepreneurship in Europe and the United States: Security, Finance, and Accountability,” (with Roman Frydman and Omar Khan), Perspectives on the Performance of the Continent’s Economies, (Phelps, E. and H-W. Sinn, eds.), MIT Press, 2011
“Why Ownership Matters? Entrepreneurship and the Restructuring of Enterprises in Central Europe,” (with Roman Frydman and Marek Hessel), Corporate Governance Lessons from Transition Economies, (Fox, Merritt and Heller, Michael, eds.), Princeton University Press, 2006
“Can Constitutions Protect Private Property Against Governmental Predation?” in Enrico Colombatto, The Elgar Companion to the Economics of Property Rights, Edward Elgar Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, 2004
“The Limits of Discipline: Ownership and Hard Budget Constraints in the Transition Economies,” (with Roman Frydman, Cheryl Gray, and Marek Hessel), The Economics of Transition, 8, 2000
“When Does Privatization Work? The Impact of Private Ownership on Corporate Performance in the Transition Economies,” (with Roman Frydman, Cheryl Gray, and Marek Hessel), Quarterly Journal of Economics, Nov., 1999
“The Role of the State and the Market in Establishing Property Rights,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 10, no. 2, 1996; reprinted in Law and Economic Development, (H.B. Schaefer and A.V. Raja, eds.), Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2006
“Constitutional Politics in Poland; A Report on the Constitutional Committee of the Polish Parliament,” 58 Chicago Law Review, 1991
“The Ninth Amendment and the Unwritten Constitution: The Problems of Constitutional Interpretation,” 64 Chicago-Kent Law Review, 1988 (reprinted in The Rights Retained by the People; The History and Meaning of the Ninth Amendment, volume 2), (R. Barnett, ed.), George Mason University Press, Fairfax, Va, 1993
“From Sovereignty to Process: The Jurisprudence of Federalism After Garcia,” 1985 Supreme Court Review
“Locke's Conception of Property and the Principle of Sufficient Reason,” Journal of the History of Ideas 42, 1981

Download Full C.V.

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Courses

C. Legal Theory Workshop
S. Legal Theory Workshop
Torts
Trusts and Estates