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Keeping Promises and Contracts

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Encyclopedia of Law and Economics

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Abstract

There are reasons for individuals to keep contractual promises beyond legal remedies and reputational concerns. This entry reviews the leading explanations of promise-keeping behavior as well as recent evidence for the latter as collected in laboratory experiments. In the end, it discusses avenues for future research and recent applications of the results collected so far for the design of contracts and their legal enforcement.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, Munich, Germany

    Sergio Mittlaender

Authors
  1. Sergio Mittlaender
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sergio Mittlaender .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. MRE and University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    Alain Marciano

  2. Faculté d’Economie, Université de Montpellier and LAMETA-UMR CNRS, Montpellier, France

    Alain Marciano

  3. DiGSPES, University of Eastern Piedmont, Alessandria, Italy

    Giovanni Battista Ramello

  4. IEL, Torino, Italy

    Giovanni Battista Ramello

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Mittlaender, S. (2019). Keeping Promises and Contracts. In: Marciano, A., Ramello, G.B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7753-2_696

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