This chapter surveys major issues arising in the economic analysis of contract law. It begins with an introductory discussion of scope and methodology, and then addresses four main topics that correspond to the major doctrinal divisions of the law of contracts. These divisions include freedom of...

The Brussels Ia Regulation leaves businesses no feasible option for a choice of jurisdiction in cross-border B2C contracts. The recent judgment by the European Court of Justice in the Ryanair case confirms that the Court will not tolerate any attempts to circumvent the regulatory aim of...

When investments are non-verifiable, inducing cooperative investments with simple contracts may not be as difficult as previously thought. Indeed, modeling “expectation damages” close to legal practice, we show that the default remedy of contract law induces the ?rst best. Yet, in order to...

Employee covenants not to compete bar workers who leave their jobs from working for a competing employer for a period of time. The common law regards noncompetes as restraints of trade and imposes a “reasonableness” standard on them; they can also be challenged under the antitrust laws. But...

Are zero hours contracts lawful? This note responds to the DBIS consultation on banning exclusivity clauses (August 2014). It asks the following: what is a zero hours contract? To what extent are zero hours contracts legal? Why have zero hours contracts spread? And finally, what is the right...

In the midst of globalization and liberalization fever, the people are grooming with wide-range of information even before the age of majority. However, the Indian Contract Act envisages that the minors are incompetent to hold any form of contracts. This paper is concern only with minor in...

Nach dem Grundsatz «pacta sunt servanda» ermöglichen Verträge den Beteiligten das Vertrauen in den Bestand eines Leistungsversprechens. Die Zivilgerichte können jedoch in der Praxis pflichtgemäßes und vertragswidriges Verhalten nicht fehlerfrei unterscheiden. Unter Zuhilfenahme des...

We examine how labor mobility restrictions in the form of non-compete clauses in employment contracts affect employee behavior. Using the mutual fund industry as testing laboratory, we show that fund managers respond to higher job termination costs due to increased enforceability of non-compete...

Naidu and Yuchtman (2013) find that labor demand shocks in 19th-century Britain had an impact on master and servant prosecutions, as breaking an employee contract was a criminal offense until 1875. We first reproduce all regression tables in Naidu and Yuchtman (2013) and then test for robustness...

Do you ask for contract or purchase terms prior to completing your everyday purchases? Do you first read the pizza box before paying the pizza delivery guy or gal? Typical consumers do not ask for or read their contracts prepurchase, and companies have become accustomed to burying purchase terms...