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Courts of Law and Unforeseen Contingencies

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Author Info

  • Luca Anderlini
  • Leonardo Felli
  • Andrew Postlewaite

Abstract

We study a contracting model with unforeseen contingencies in which the court is an active player. Ex-ante, the contracting parties cannot include the risky unforeseen contingencies in the contract they draw up. Ex-post the court observes whether an unforeseen contingency occurred, and decides whether to void or uphold the contract. If the contract is voided by the court, the parties can renegotiate a new agreement ex-post. There are two effects of a court that voids more contracts. The parties' incentives to undertake relationship-specific investment are reduced, while the parties enjoy greater insurance againt the unforeseen contingencies which the ex-ante contract cannot take into account. In this context, we are able to characterise fully the optimal decision rule for the court. The behaviour of the optimal court is determined by the trade-off between the need for incentives and the gains from insurance that voiding in some circumstances offers to the agents.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE in its series STICERD - Theoretical Economics Paper Series with number 447.

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Date of creation: Feb 2003
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Handle: RePEc:cep:stitep:447

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Web page: http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/default.asp

Related research

Keywords: Court of law; unforeseen contingencies; precedents; incentives; insurance.;

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References

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  1. Segal, Ilya, 1999. "Complexity and Renegotiation: A Foundation for Incomplete Contracts," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(1), pages 57-82, January.
  2. Nabil J Al-Najjar & Luca Anderlini & Leonardo Felli, 2002. "Unforeseen Contingencies," STICERD - Theoretical Economics Paper Series 431, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
  3. Nabil I. Al-Najjar & Luca Anderlini & Leonardo Felli, 2003. "Undescribable Events," CESifo Working Paper Series 1092, CESifo Group Munich.
  4. Bernheim, B Douglas & Whinston, Michael D, 1998. "Incomplete Contracts and Strategic Ambiguity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(4), pages 902-32, September.
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  8. Dekel, Eddie & Lipman, Barton L. & Rustichini, Aldo, 1998. "Recent developments in modeling unforeseen contingencies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 523-542, May.
  9. 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.
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  11. Louis Kaplow & Steven Shavell, 1999. "Economic Analysis of Law," NBER Working Papers 6960, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  12. Alan Schwartz & Joel Watson, 2000. "Economic and Legal Aspects of Costly Recontracting," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm143, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Jan 2001.
  13. Alan Schwartz, 2004. "The Law and Economics of Costly Contracting," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 2-31, April.
  14. Schwartz, Alan & Watson, Joel, 2001. "The Law and Economics of Costly Contracting," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt2wh8m7bv, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
  15. Jean Tirole, 1999. "Incomplete Contracts: Where Do We Stand?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 741-782, July.
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