Gresham's law Gresham's law In economics, Gresham's law is a monetary principle stating that "bad money drives out good". For example, if there are two forms of commodity money in circulation, which are accepted by law as having similar face value, the more valuable commodity will gradually disappear from circulation. The law was named in 1860 by Henry Dunning Macleod, after Sir Thomas Gresham (1519–1579), who was an English financier during the Tudor dynasty. However, there are numerous predecessors. The law had been stated earlier by Nicolaus Copernicus; for this reason, it is occasionally known as the Gresham–Copernicus law. It was also
Hard cases make bad law received special attention as the recipient of more care. The legal scholar Arthur Linton Corbin, writing in 1923, reversed the adage in an article entitled "Hard Cases Make Good Law": Hard cases make bad law Hard cases make bad law is an adage or legal maxim. The phrase means that an extreme case is a poor basis for a general law that would cover a wider range of less extreme cases. In other words, a general law is better drafted for the average circumstance as this will be more common. The original meaning of the phrase concerned cases in which