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Law and Economics of Obligations

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  • Schweizer, Urs

Abstract

While various liability rules of tort law provide efficient incentives to invest, breach remedies of contract law are claimed to be distortive. Since, at least in Germany, obligations law provides general rules for both contractual and tort relationships such discrepancy seems puzzling. The paper identifies a saddle point property as the driving force behind most efficiency results and it establishes that fault rules of a general type generate this property. The model is then confronted with important legal rules of the German law of obligations. The alleged inefficiency of expectation damages turns out to rest, not on a failure of breach remedies, but on the binary nature of delivery choice as imposed by the traditional analysis of contract law.

Suggested Citation

  • Schweizer, Urs, 2004. "Law and Economics of Obligations," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 2/2004, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:bonedp:22004
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven Shavell, 1980. "Damage Measures for Breach of Contract," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 11(2), pages 466-490, Autumn.
    2. Satish K. Jain & Ram Singh, 2002. "Efficient Liability Rules: Complete Characterization," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 75(2), pages 105-124, March.
    3. Kahan, Marcel, 1989. "Causation and Incentives to Take Care under the Negligence Rule," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(2), pages 427-447, June.
    4. Edlin, Aaron S & Reichelstein, Stefan, 1996. "Holdups, Standard Breach Remedies, and Optimal Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 478-501, June.
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K12 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Contract Law
    • K13 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Tort Law and Product Liability; Forensic Economics
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities

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