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Full-Text Articles in Law
Contracts Without Courts Or Clans: How Business Networks Govern Exchange, Sadie Blanchard
Contracts Without Courts Or Clans: How Business Networks Govern Exchange, Sadie Blanchard
Journal Articles
Legal scholars have long recognized the close-knit community as an alternative institution for supporting trade when contract law and trusted courts are unavailable. But recent research suggests that another option may be available: heterogeneous business networks. What’s interesting is that these networks lack features traditionally seen as essential to community-supported trade. In particular, they lack preexisting noncommercial social ties that allow reliable and trusted information to spread at low cost, make exiting the network difficult, and enable coordinated sanctioning of cheaters. As a result, some leading scholars doubt that these networks are doing the work of sustaining cooperation. This Article …
Are All Contracts Alike?, Margaret F. Brinig
Are All Contracts Alike?, Margaret F. Brinig
Journal Articles
This Article compares two sets of contracts that are structurally and contextually similar. They originate in two quite different fields, however: the commercial arena and the family. The contracts come from two separate empirical investigations. The first investigation studied 131 telecommunication interconnection agreements made between SBC Communications, Inc. ("SBC") and various local phone companies in Michigan beginning in 1998. The second investigation involved 141 divorce cases granted in 1998 in Johnson County, Iowa, all of which involved children, and 130 of which involved contracts, or "stipulations" as they are called locally. Though each empirical project has been described separately elsewhere, …
Penalty Defaults In Family Law: The Case Of Child Custody, Margaret F. Brinig
Penalty Defaults In Family Law: The Case Of Child Custody, Margaret F. Brinig
Journal Articles
This paper considers whether an amendment to state divorce laws that strengthens its joint custody preference operates as a traditional default rule, specifying what most divorcing couples would choose or as a penalty default rule the parties will attempt to contract around.
While the Oregon statutes that frame our discussion here, like most state laws, do not state an explicit preference for joint custody, shared custody is certainly encouraged by Section 107.179, which refers cases in which the parties cannot agree on joint custody to mediation and by Section 107.105, which requires the court to consider awarding custody jointly. In …
Unhappy Contracts: The Case Of Divorce Settlements, Margaret F. Brinig
Unhappy Contracts: The Case Of Divorce Settlements, Margaret F. Brinig
Journal Articles
This paper examines a particular type of contracts that is, sadly, increasingly frequent: the agreements produced by divorcing couples. They are unhappy contracts, agreements produced as a necessary part of exit from what is now suboptimal marriage. They are virtually required by many states and are, in theory at least, closely monitored by courts since, when children are involved, they will be incorporated into court orders.What parties to unhappy contracts do is attempt to minimize losses, rather than maximize gain. How are contracts structured that will do this, and how does a difference in the size or power of the …
Co-Operative Marketing--Statutes Providing Penalty Against Third Persons Who Induce Breach Of Marketing Contracts, Thomas F. Broden
Co-Operative Marketing--Statutes Providing Penalty Against Third Persons Who Induce Breach Of Marketing Contracts, Thomas F. Broden
Journal Articles
Capitalism is most prudent in accepting into its legal system measures of governmental regulation which apply to economic relations generally and contract relations particularly. Efforts of the executive, legislative or judicial branches of either British or American governments to directly control phases of contractual relationships have generally met staunch and rigid opposition. The spirit of the sacredness and inviolability of the contract relation was a logical outgrowth of the capitalistic system in its inception. At that time freedom was a passion, self-sufficiency a goal. From an era thus shrouded and bedecked with individualism, it is little wonder that measures affecting, …