Language, Law, and Wealth Destruction in Puerto Rico

By: Scott M. Brown and Daniel J. Hall

PDF: Language, Law, and Wealth

This Article examines how Puerto Rico's monolingual Spanish

legal regime, rooted in colonial-era civil law and reinforced by

nationalist language policies, creates structural barriers that weaken

economic integration with the United States. The island's symbolic

legal autonomy has produced five entrenched institutional

monopolies—in inheritance law, notarial services, property titling,

language of legal instruction, and franchise distribution rights—that

deter investment, constrain human capital formation, and generate

significant wealth destruction.

Combining legal history, institutional analysis, and economic

data, this Article challenges the unelected fiscal control board created

by the 2016 Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic

Stability Act (PROMESA), which imposed expert-driven austerity

measures while excluding Puerto Rican voices from decision-making.

Drawing on Harvard Professor Kathryn Sikkink's justice cascade

framework—which explains how accountability norms spread and

become institutionalized—the Article demonstrates why PROMESA's

technocratic governance has failed to address Puerto Rico's underlying

institutional dysfunctions. The Article argues that sustainable reform

requires democratically-grounded legal restructuring that dismantles

these monopolistic wealth-destroying institutions.