Economics and Contract Law

Authors

Richard R. W. Brooks, New York University School of LawFollow

Files

Description

This chapter looks to the intersection of economics and contract law, though not from the more common perspective of the ‘economics of contract law,’ - rather by taking a view toward the ‘contract law of economics.’ To develop this alternative perspective the chapter departs with several functional definitions and then presents a taxonomy of modes of economic exchange. Thereafter, the chapter considers the role of contract law in economic thought, presenting a salient early moment in the analysis of economic exchange wherein the law of contracts appears to have had enabling impact on the development of economic thinking. The chapter concludes with a more recent moment when contract doctrine and case law influenced the development of an economic theory of performance and breach. Considered broadly, the chapter is an invitation to scholars to look for animating features of contract law hidden or implicit in economic thought and methods, and the reverse.

First Page

56

DOI

https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800885417.00011

Source Publication

Research Handbook on the Philosophy of Contract Law

Source Editors/Authors

Mindy Chen-Wishart, Prince Saprai

Publication Date

4-22-2025

Publisher

Edward Elgar Publishing

Recommended Citation

Richard R. Brooks, Economics and Contract Law, Research Handbook on the Philosophy of Contract Law 56 (2025).
Available at: https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/2148