Courts seeking the most likely intent of contracting parties should interpret contracts according to Bayes’ Rule. The best interpretation of a contract reflects both the prior likelihood (base rate) of a pair of contracting parties having a given intention as well as the probability that the...

Existing research suggests that practicing litigators are too confident in the merits of their clients’ cases. But practicing attorneys often self select (1) the area of law in which they practice, (2) the side on which to practice within that area, (3) law firms with whom they practice, and...

The limited capacity of lawmakers to intuit the unstated wishes of contracting parties constitutes a daunting obstacle to the formulation of majoritarian default rules. This paper presents a field experiment that prices consumers’ unstated understandings of contractual silence regarding...

This note examines how the income tax code can be altered to stabilize the economy in the face of fluctuations. First, the note suggests that tax expenditures for goods with high income elasticities should be replaced with government spending, while tax expenditures for inferior goods should be...

We conducted a survey to assess Americans’ preferences for revenue increases and spending cuts. A representative sample of 1,000 Americans completed the survey in December 2012. Respondents had a specific deficit reduction goal: cut the projected 2022 deficit by $900 billion, or by two-thirds....

This article surveys recent work on the role of law in determining economic aggregates such as gross domestic product, unemployment, inflation, and productivity growth. We provide a brief overview of macroeconomics and discuss how legal interventions and institutional arrangements such as...

This article surveys recent work on the role of law in determining economic aggregates such as gross domestic product, unemployment, inflation, and productivity growth. We provide a brief overview of macroeconomics and discuss how legal interventions and institutional arrangements such as...

Tax expenditure estimates are viewed with skepticism even within the fraught business of forecasting the revenue effects of policies. As the Joint Committee on Taxation emphasizes, Unlike revenue estimates, tax expenditure estimates do not incorporate any behavioral response of taxpayers or...

This Article considers the effects of law within a Keynesian macroeconomic model on the economy. Using the IS/LM model at the heart of “short-run” macroeconomics, I argue that law affects spending (“aggregate demand”) and that the changes in spending induced by law can affect output. I...

In this article, I discuss how near-zero interest rates — which virtually eliminate the time value of money — should change our thinking about the importance of particular tax doctrines, as well as our targets for tax reform. Doctrines that determine timing of income, such as capitalization...