Law Commons^™

Contract Theory And The Failures Of Public-Private Contracting (Forthcoming), Wendy Netter Epstein

Wendy Netter Epstein

The market for public-private contracting is huge and flawed. Public-private contracts for services such as prisons and welfare administration tend to result in cost savings at the sacrifice of quality service. For instance, to cut costs, private prisons skimp on security. Public law scholars have studied these problems for decades and have proposed various public law solutions. But the literature is incomplete because it does not approach the problem through a commercial lens. This Article fills that gap. It considers how economic analysis of contract law, in particular efficiency theory and agency theory, bear upon the unique problems of public-private …

Building Bio-Based Supply Chains: Theoretical Perspectives On Innovative Contract Design, A. Bryan Endres, Jody M. Endres, Jeremy J. Stoller

A. Bryan Endres

By 2030, the United States will consume over 300 million tons of forest and agricultural feedstocks for energy production. The supply chain necessary to provide unprecedented quantities of new “bioenergy crops,” however, is fraught with uncertainty. The vertically integrated model the nascent sector currently uses may have limited opportunity for expansion to meet renewable energy mandates. A hybrid structure is likely to emerge as the industry evolves, in which end-users closely cooperate with a large number of heterogeneous producers through long-term contracting rather than as direct owners or operators of biomass farms. This “vertically coordinated” industry model is dependent on …

La Voluntad En Los Contratos De Adhesión: Sociología Y Crítica Jurídica, Con Énfasis En El Análisis Económico Del Derecho / The Consent Theory Critique And Standard Form Contracts In Civil Law (With Special Reference To Law And Economics), Andres Palacios Lleras

Andrés Palacios Lleras

El presente artículo tiene como propósito sugerir los elementos básicos para (re)construir una doctrina diferente sobre la interpretación de los contratos de adhesión en Colombia, basada en las ideas de Josserand y en literatura contemporánea sobre análisis económico del derecho. La tesis que se argumenta sugiere que dichos contratos deben interpretarse teniendo en mente tanto las característias cognitivas de los adherentes, como el desequilirio de poder negocial que subyace su relación con los oferentes, y sugiere que las normas potestativas sólo puedan ser cambiadas a favor de la parte adherente.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the connections …

Contract As Convention, F. H. Buckley

F. H. Buckley

Contract theory is a curiously neglected field. While the efficiency of contract law rules has received much attention, the same cannot be said of the more basic question why contracts should be enforced. The reliance and autonomy explanations which contract theorists most frequently offer are moreover unpersuasive. Reliance theories would ground relief on detrimental reliance, and fail to explain why promisees should be given an incentive to rely. Autonomy theories misfire by failing to account for the conventional nature of promissory institutions, and do not explain why they ought to exist, as opposed to any number of other conventions (or …

Cross Purposes & Unintended Consequences--Karl Llewellyn, Article 2 And The Limits Of Social Transformation, Danielle K. Hart

Danielle K Hart

Despite attempts to reform the law to eliminate hierarchies that subordinate groups of people, the law usually ends up reinstantiating those hierarchies. This “preservation through transformation” phenomenon occurs consistently, over time and across legal disciplines. Karl Llewellyn’s efforts at drafting Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code are no different. Llewellyn attempted a paradigm shift in contract formation when he sought to decouple contract law from its formalistic roots and bring it back in touch with reality on the ground. But in so doing, the law-in-action strand of Legal Realism ended up working at cross purposes with the other, critical …

Contract Law Now--Reality Meets Legal Fictions, Danielle K. Hart

Danielle K Hart

Modern contract law is designed to achieve a fundamental objective, namely, to ensure that voluntary agreements between private parties are legally binding. The appropriateness of this objective and the assumptions underlying it are rarely questioned. Legal scholars, practitioners, and policymakers alike presuppose that the binding-nature of contracts is a desirable and a positive feature of our legal system. But are the assumptions underlying the modern contract system sound? Do people behave in the way that contract law supposes? And are the concepts of voluntary, informed consent and freedom from state interference really the hallmarks of the modern contract system? This …

Contract As Convention, F. H. Buckley

F. H. Buckley

Contract theory is a curiously neglected field. While the efficiency of contract law rules has received much attention, the same cannot be said of the more basic question why contracts should be enforced. The reliance and autonomy explanations which contract theorists most frequently offer are moreover unpersuasive. Reliance theories would ground relief on detrimental reliance, and fail to explain why promisees should be given an incentive to rely. Autonomy theories misfire by failing to account for the conventional nature of promissory institutions, and do not explain why they ought to exist, as opposed to any number of other conventions (or …

Contract As Convention, F. H. Buckley

F. H. Buckley

Contract theory is a curiously neglected field. While the efficiency of contract law rules has received much attention, the same cannot be said of the more basic question why contracts should be enforced. The reliance and autonomy explanations which contract theorists most frequently offer are moreover unpersuasive. Reliance theories would ground relief on detrimental reliance, and fail to explain why promisees should be given an incentive to rely. Autonomy theories misfire by failing to account for the conventional nature of promissory institutions, and do not explain why they ought to exist, as opposed to any number of other conventions (or …

Contracts As Plans, Curtis Bridgeman

Curtis Bridgeman

This paper offers an original theory of contract law that draws from recent work in the philosophy of action and legal theory. Human beings are essentially planning creatures. Making plans and following through with them is crucial to everyday practical reasoning both for individuals acting alone and individuals acting together. This somewhat intuitive point was not fully appreciated in the philosophy of action as recently as twenty years ago, when Michael Bratman began to point out the inadequacies of the then-dominant view of rationality. Recently, Scott Shapiro has been applying Bratman’s insights on practical reasoning to debates in legal theory …