Contracts between Legal Persons

Kornhauser, Lewis A.; MacLeod, W. Bentley

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1723990

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Contracts between Legal Persons

IZA Discussion Paper No. 5352

56 Pages Posted: 13 Dec 2010

See all articles by Lewis A. Kornhauser

W. Bentley MacLeod

Princeton University; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Columbia University - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

There are 2 versions of this paper

Abstract

Contract law and the economics of contract have, for the most part, developed independently of each other. In this essay, we briefly review the notion of a contract from the perspective of lawyer, and then use this framework to organize the economics literature on contract. The title, Contracts between Legal Persons, limits the review to that part of contract law that is generic to any legal person. A legal person is any individual, firm or government agency with the right to enter into binding agreements. Our goal is to discuss the role of the law in enforcing these agreements under the hypothesis that the legal persons have well defined goals and objectives.

Keywords: contract law, law and economics, contract breach, contract theory, incomplete contracts

JEL Classification: K12, J33

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Kornhauser, Lewis A. and MacLeod, William Bentley, Contracts between Legal Persons. IZA Discussion Paper No. 5352, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1723990 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1723990