Law Commons^™

A Relational Theory Of Default Rules For Commercial Contracts, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

The relationship between legal rules and the strategies that commercial parties use to deal with risk is among the most important and least understood topics in law and economics. Organizational theorists have generally confined their analyses to the nature of the firm and other permanent relationships. Academic commercial lawyers, in turn, have been far less venturesome than their corporate colleagues in applying fundamental economic insights. Not surprisingly, therefore, we know very little about the inner workings of most commercial relationships. For these reasons (and more) I applaud efforts to integrate economic insights and legal structures, exemplified by Clay Gillette's imaginative …