Research methods for 21st-century consumer contracts: new wines, old bottles?

Cătălin-Gabriel Stănescu and Liviu Damsa

Chapter 11 in Research Methods for Contract Law and Scholarship, 2025, pp 256-287 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter addresses the limitations of the 19th-century ‘classical’ contract theory, which is still dominant in the legal profession and courtrooms, when this theory is applied to contracts involving consumers. It further provides an overview of the challenges posed to consumer contracts by technological advances, particularly digitalisation, and it outlines research methods that will enable researchers to study consumer contracts in the digital age. It then examines the implications of the three main trends – digitalisation, automation, and profiling – for contract theory and practice. Finally, the chapter argues that sociological and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of contracts are well suited to address current issues and to produce workable solutions for consumer contracts that avoid the blind spots of classical legal theory.

Keywords: Consumer contracts; Contract theory; Digitalisation; Automation; Profiling; Sociological approaches in consumer contracts research; Interdisciplinary (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035316465
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