Agreements not to compete are generally an anathema to free market advocates. Independent profit maximization is one of the fundamental assumptions of the neoclassical economic model and necessary to its conclusion that markets yield results that are Paraeto efficient. Consistent with this...

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...

As the archetypical franchisor and industry leader, McDonald’s has come under much public and legal scrutiny in recent years for its business practices and its effects on low-wage and unskilled employees. Its no hire provision—which is a term included in its franchise agreements with...

Procyclical investment opportunities and labor demand create time series-variation in the importance of labor mobility for corporate investment. Firms located in more mobile labor markets, captured by variation in state courts’ enforcement of covenants not to compete, increase investment rates...

Weak economic growth and the resultant financial pressures have made post-retirement benefits a tempting target for cutbacks, in both the private and public sectors. Unlike pensions themselves, ancillary retirement benefits such as supplementary medical coverage are often vaguely defined. If...

Do workers’ unions promote gender equality? The scholarship in the past thirty years has increasingly questioned the ability of unions to give voice to the needs of all workers, including foreign workers, workers with disabilities, elderly workers, gay and lesbian workers, and women. This...

Non-tax legal rules regulating the workplace, the financial sector, real property, and many other areas affect the ability of governments to collect revenues and provide public goods. Yet tax-collection considerations rarely enter into economic analyses of non-tax legal rules. Usually,...

A principal hires an agent to provide a verifiable service. Initially, the agent can exert unobservable effort to reduce his disutility from providing the service. If the agent is free to waive his right to quit, he may voluntarily sign a contract specifying an inefficiently large service level,...

Our economic system counts on markets to allocate most of our societal resources. The law often treats markets as discrete entities, with a native intelligence and structure that provides clear answers to questions about prices and terms. In reality, of course, markets are much messier—they...