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Behavioral economics

2014

Selected Works

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Building A Framework For Governance: Retrospective Review And Rulemaking Petitions, Reeve T. Bull Mar 2014

Building A Framework For Governance: Retrospective Review And Rulemaking Petitions, Reeve T. Bull

Reeve T Bull

Of the various regulatory reform efforts advocated by legal scholars and politicians in recent years, perhaps none holds greater promise than retrospective review of agency regulations, whereby agencies revisit existing rules to determine whether they remain appropriate in light of changed circumstances. The Obama Administration has embraced the principles of retrospective review, issuing three executive orders on the subject, and it has trumpeted billions of dollars in economic savings resulting from those efforts. Nevertheless, numerous scholars have criticized these initiatives, contending that agencies reviewing their own regulations are unlikely to repeal or fundamentally overhaul existing rules. This article addresses the …


Facilitating Incomplete Contracts, Wendy Netter Epstein Dec 2013

Facilitating Incomplete Contracts, Wendy Netter Epstein

Wendy Netter Epstein

Contract law abhors incompleteness. Although no contract can be entirely complete, the idea of a purposefully incomplete or underspecified contract is antithetical to lawyers’ ideals of certainty for the parties and for the law. Indeed, contract law is designed to incentivize parties to specifically articulate their intentions. Yet there is a growing body of interdisciplinary work in economics and cognitive psychology demonstrating that highly specified contracts tend to stifle intrinsic motivation and innovation, whereas less-specified contracts — particularly in public-private contracting, IP, and contracting for innovation — can induce higher effort levels and a more cooperative principal-agent relationship than the …