Concept and Problematic Field of Economic Law

Abstract

The article discerns the scope of coverage or the problematic field of economic law. The author tries to provide certain elements that help dispel the uncertainty surrounding the discipline. To address the task, it points out some antecedents that show the existing interactions between the state organization, the law and the economy, and highlights the economic foundations of the State's behavior over time, from the liberal to the current one, which in the Ecuadorian case, starting from the Political Constitution of the Republic (1998), is conceived with an economic system based on the free market but without ignoring the human aspect (social market economy). This article also seeks to account for the appearance of Economic Law in European countries and in some belonging to the American environment, as well as various attempts to arrive at a definition of the discipline, pointing out its main characteristics, contents, classification and scope of application.