Law Commons^™

The Strategic Structure Of Offer And Acceptance: Game Theory And The Law Of Contract Formation, Avery Katz

Michigan Law Review

The purpose of this article is to promote a particular research program; namely, the use of game theory to analyze the law of contract formation. Although I will often simply speak of offer and acceptance in my discussion, I mean to refer to a broader set of issues than are commonly denoted by this doctrinal label. My program transcends the narrow issue of whether particular communications technically should be classified as offers and acceptances, and includes questions often analyzed under the rubrics of implication and interpretation. At its broadest, my argument addresses all legal rules that answer two types of …

Social Irresponsibility, Actuarial Assumptions, And Wealth Redistribution: Lessons About Public Policy From A Prepaid Tuition Program, Jeffrey S. Lehman

Michigan Law Review

In this article, I shall try to illuminate the question of how governments, as opposed to private insurers, grapple with the problem of intergenerational social irresponsibility. I shall do so by analyzing and criticizing a single public program. That program, the Michigan Education Trust (MET), was the most widely publicized government action in the field of higher education finance during the 1980s. MET allows parents of young children to purchase contracts promising to cover the children's tuition at Michigan public colleges when they enroll up to eighteen years later.

In setting forth this case study, I also attempt to develop …