Freedom of choice and paternalism in contract law: a law and economics perspective

Peter Cserne
Additional contact information
Peter Cserne: University of Hamburg

No 2006-1-1139, German Working Papers in Law and Economics from Berkeley Electronic Press

Abstract: This paper is a preliminary discussion of some theoretical and methodological issues related to my PhD thesis. The topic of the dissertation can be succinctly formulated as the legal and economic analysis of paternalism in contract law. The thesis starts with some discussion of conceptual and normative issues of paternalism in political and legal philosophy, and then focuses on legal policy questions in contract law. Methodologically, my purpose is to analyse whether and how the traditional economic arguments against paternalism and for freedom of contract should be reassessed in light of recent empirical and theoretical studies. More specifically, the question is whether the anti-paternalist view based on consumer sovereignty remains valid if, following behavioural decision theory we assume that not only (at least one of)the contracting individuals but also the legislator/regulator is imperfectly rational or not fully informed. That is, whether we have to modify the traditional anti-paternalism of law and economics for anti-anti-paternalism: a limited and critical version of paternalism. In this paper I discuss the conceptual and methodological background of an economic approach to paternalism in contract law.

Keywords: paternalism; contract regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-law
Note: oai:bepress:
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1139&context=gwp (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bep:dewple:2006-1-1139

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in German Working Papers in Law and Economics from Berkeley Electronic Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().