Panel 6: Presidential Panel on Empirical Research: Empirical Research on Contracts

Session Organizer:

Valerie Hans (Cornell University)Chair:
Lawrence M Friedman (Stanford University)

Discussant:

Stewart Macaulay (University of Wisconsin, Madison)

Papers:

Empirical Research on Contracts
Lisa Bernstein (University of Chicago Law School)

What Do We Mean by the “Non-Use” of Contract?
David Campbell (Durham University, UK)

Public Symbol in Private Contract: A Case Study
Anna Gelpern (Rutgers University, Newark), G. Mitu Gulati (Duke University)

Dogmas of Empiricism and the Role of Imagination in Legal Realism
Jonathan Yovel (University of Haifa / Columbia Law School)

Abstract:

Law professor Stewart Macaulay began teaching at the University of Wisconsin 50 years ago, and early on laid the foundation for empirical research on contracts. This panel features presentations of empirical studies of contracts, many of which have been stimulated by his important early work. Stewart Macaulay will serve as discussant, sharing his reflections on decades of empirical work on contracts and what has been discovered.