This paper studies the Spanish Premial Law applying an economic viewpoint. We reach the conclusion, that during the period studied (1995-2009) there has been a sharp increase in the number of civil order awarded, thus showing a phenomenon of “inflation”. This would imply a devaluation of the supposed merits underlying the awarding, meaning a corruption of the Premial system.
Generally speaking, incentives have received a broad attention, not only by economists, but also from
related fields like sociology and law. This notwithstanding, interest has mainly centred on monetary
incentives (for example Stiglitz, 2006), as this sort of compensation allows the receptor to maximise its utility
(Becker, 1974), or on non-monetary incentives (like business cars, better offices, etc.) summarised under the
term “fringe benefits”. Alternatively, economic analysis of law has studied mostly negative incentives, suchas fines and punishment. i Nevertheless, one major category —if not the main category— of positive
incentives used by States have so far been nearly neglected both by economists and jurists: the awarding of
orders, medals, decorations and other honours that constitute the so called Premial Law, referring to which
already Beccaria lamented that:
“Upon this subject [Premial Law] the laws of all nations are silent. If the rewards proposed by academies for the
discovery of useful truths have increased our knowledge, and multiplied good books, is it not probable that rewards,
distributed by the beneficent hand of a sovereign, would also multiply virtuous actions.” [Beccaria [1764] (1991), p.
83].
There are serious evidences that Beccaria intended to write a complete Tract on Premial Law, although he
finally did not achieve this purpose (Jiménez, 1915:27). It was Dragonetti (1836) who published a Treatise on
virtues and rewards. Nevertheless it is Jeremy Bentham, who might be considered the father of Premial Law
with his work entitled Théorie des peines et des recompenses. Later, Le Grasserie (1900) published an
important article in La Scuola positive dealing with this topic and in which he (erroneously) stated that he was
the first to introduce the concept of Premial Law. Finally, it might be stressed that the probably most
important monograph on this matter was published by a Spaniard, Luis Jiménez de Asúa (1915), entitled La
recompensa como prevención general. El Derecho Premial.
The main aim of this study has been to analyze the Spanish Laudative System from an economic
viewpoint. For this purpose, we start with a brief overview of the evolution and current situation of the
Spanish Premial System. We then analyze the concepts of “merit” and “meritorious” as they constitute the
base upon which to decide which actions should be worth a social distinction. After a brief presentation of the
current system of civil orders in Spain, we enter the nucleus of our study: the question whether an
uncontrolled awarding of orders and medals could derive in inflation, thus conducing to a devaluation of the
underlying merits and, as a consequence, a distortion (or, worst, a corruption) of the whole Premial Law. Our
study is completed with an empirical analysis of the highest classes of the Spanish civil awards, which
confirms the previous hypothesis.
This question, which has so far been ignored by Spanish politicians, has nevertheless attracted the attention
of several other European governments (see for examples Philips, 2004), which have substantially reformedtheir Premial Law in recent times. As we have already pointed out, Spain presents an opposite trend regarding
the awarding of others in comparison to France, Germany or Great Britain. In addition to this, Spain also
presents a heavy bias towards man in the number of awards, while France and Germany have a much more
equilibrated distribution by gender. Finally, Spanish Laudative Law suffers from a proliferation regional of
orders that complement the already complex system on national awards, without any instance coordinating
them. In this sense, Germany´s decision to limit the number of awards per year (e.g. restricting to 30 the
maximum of awards to be bestowed to Members of the Parliament), and favoring awards to women, might
show the path to be followed.
