Jun 20, 2012 | Lead Articles, Number 3, Print Edition, Volume 45
Symposium—Contract as Promise at 30: The Future of Contract Theory Charles Fried’s 1981 book, Contract as Promise, started the modern discussion in the United States and many other places on contract theory, and remains an influential view to which all contract...
Jun 20, 2012 | Lead Articles, Number 3, Print Edition, Volume 45
Symposium—Contract as Promise at 30: The Future of Contract Theory What sanctions should the law inflict on those who break their contracts? Would it matter if more severe sanctions were likely to cause prices to rise? What if most contracting parties prefer higher...
Jun 20, 2012 | Lead Articles, Number 3, Print Edition, Volume 45
Symposium—Contract as Promise at 30: The Future of Contract Theory The concept of “efficient breach”—the idea that a contracting party should be encouraged to breach a contract and pay damages if doing so would be more efficient than performance—is probably the most...
Jun 20, 2012 | Lead Articles, Number 3, Print Edition, Volume 45
Symposium—Contract as Promise at 30: The Future of Contract Theory Charles Fried’s Contract as Promise stands as a model of principled legal argument. It took a single, integrating thought—that a promise lies at the heart of every contract—and then reconstructed...
Jun 20, 2012 | Lead Articles, Number 3, Print Edition, Volume 45
Symposium—Contract as Promise at 30: The Future of Contract Theory To a generation of law students, lawyers, and legal scholars, Contract as Promise has provided a liberal theory of contract that explains fundamental features of contract law and provides a normative...
Jun 20, 2012 | Lead Articles, Number 3, Print Edition, Volume 45
Symposium—Contract as Promise at 30: The Future of Contract Theory The promise principle and its roots in a certain type of morality of individual obligation, which play the central role in Charles Fried’s vision of contract law, have importantly contributed to...
