IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedpbr/y2005iq2p26-32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Legal uncertainty and contractual innovation

Author

Listed:
  • Yaron Leitner

Abstract

Although innovative contracts are important for economic growth, when firms face uncertainty as to whether contracts will be enforced, they may choose not to innovate. Legal uncertainty can arise if a judge interprets the terms of a contract in a way that is antithetical to the intentions of the parties to the contract. Or sometimes a judge may understand the contract but overrule it for other reasons. How does legal uncertainty affect firms? decisions to innovate? In ?Legal Uncertainty and Contractual Innovation,? Yaron Leitner explores issues related to legal uncertainty, particularly the amount of discretion judges have and the types of evidence they consider.

Suggested Citation

  • Yaron Leitner, 2005. "Legal uncertainty and contractual innovation," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Q2, pages 26-32.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpbr:y:2005:i:q2:p:26-32
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/frbp/assets/economy/articles/business-review/2005/q2/Q2_05_Leitner.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew Postlewaite, 2007. "Courts of Law and Unforeseen Contingencies," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 662-684, October.
    2. Anderlini Luca & Felli Leonardo & Postlewaite Andrew, 2011. "Should Courts Always Enforce What Contracting Parties Write?," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 14-28, February.
    3. Bernheim, B Douglas & Whinston, Michael D, 1998. "Incomplete Contracts and Strategic Ambiguity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 902-932, September.
    4. Shurojit Chatterji & Dragan Filipovich, 2004. "Ambiguous Contracting: Natural Language and Judicial Interpretation," Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings 419, Econometric Society.
    5. Julian R. Franks & Kjell G. Nyborg & Walter N. Torous, 1996. "A Comparison of UK, US and German Insolvency Codes," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 25(3), Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anderlini Luca & Felli Leonardo & Postlewaite Andrew, 2011. "Should Courts Always Enforce What Contracting Parties Write?," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 14-28, February.
    2. Mitchell Berlin & Yaron Leitner, 2005. "Courts and contractual innovation: a preliminary analysis," Working Papers 05-27, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    3. Joel Watson, 2007. "Contract, Mechanism Design, and Technological Detail," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(1), pages 55-81, January.
    4. Andrew Postlewaite, 2007. "Courts of Law and Unforeseen Contingencies," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 662-684, October.
    5. Hideshi Itoh, 2023. "What do contracts do to facilitate relationships?," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 333-354, July.
    6. Dana Heller & Ran Spiegler, 2008. "Contradiction as a form of Contractual Incompleteness," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 875-888, July.
    7. Shurojit Chatterji & Dragan Filipovich, 2004. "Ambiguous Contracting: Natural Language and Judicial Interpretation," Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings 419, Econometric Society.
    8. Giovanni Maggi & Robert W. Staiger, 2008. "On the Role and Design of Dispute Settlement Procedures in International Trade Agreements," NBER Working Papers 14067, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Anja Schöttner & Veikko Thiele, 2010. "Promotion Tournaments and Individual Performance Pay," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 699-731, September.
    10. Nabil I. Al-Najjar & Luca Anderlini & Leonardo Felli, 2006. "Undescribable Events," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 849-868.
    11. Roussey, Ludivine & Soubeyran, Raphael, 2018. "Overburdened judges," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 21-32.
    12. Kimmich, Christian & Fischbacher, Urs, 2016. "Behavioral determinants of supply chain integration and coexistence," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 55-77.
    13. Kim, Jongwook & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2008. "A Strategic Theory of the Firm as a Nexus of Incomplete Contracts: A Property Rights Approach," Working Papers 08-0108, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    14. Etienne Pfister & Bruno Deffains & Myriam Doriat-Duban & Stéphane Saussier, 2006. "Institutions and contracts: Franchising," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 53-78, January.
    15. Per Stromberg, "undated". "Conflicts of Interest and Market Illiquidity in Bankruptcy Auctions: Theory and Tests," CRSP working papers 459, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    16. David Martimort & Aggey Semenov & Lars Stole, 2017. "A Theory of Contracts with Limited Enforcement," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(2), pages 816-852.
    17. Göller, Daniel & Stremitzer, Alexander, 2014. "Breach remedies inducing hybrid investments," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 26-38.
    18. Cremer, Jacques & Khalil, Fahad, 1992. "Gathering Information before Signing a Contract," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 566-578, June.
    19. Alan Schwartz, 2004. "The Law and Economics of Costly Contracting," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 2-31, April.
    20. Grubb, Farley, 2000. "The Statutory Regulation of Colonial Servitude: An Incomplete-Contract Approach," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 42-75, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Contracts;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedpbr:y:2005:i:q2:p:26-32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Beth Paul (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbphus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.