Economics of Contracts and Law

This syllabus is only as an informative orientation for new students.
Every academic year, professors will give to the students the updated syllabus with the exact contents and evaluation system.
 

S. Van Hemmen (UAB)
stefan.vanhemmen@uab.cat

Miguel A. García-Cestona (UAB)
miguel.garcia.cestona@uab.cat

Course Objectives

This course builds on the contractual perspective of organizations, and is divided in two sections.

SECTION I: Contracts in a globalised economy (prof. S. Van Hemmen).

In the current industrial revolution (according to many authors, the fourth in world economic history) the list of disruptive technologies is endless. In a few minutes it is easy to find ten or twenty technological areas that, we do not conjecture, but a fortiori we know they will produce profound transformations in the way we organize everything (to name a few: additive printing, integrated systems, cloud computing , internet of things, polyvalent robotics, artificial intelligence, connected buildings and vehicles, drones, mini satellites, geolocation, block chain ...). Neither business organizations nor the law are immune to this process, forcing legislators to rethink the way in which economic transactions are regulated, the information contained therein, the rights associated with industrial activities, labor relations, and a long , etc. Starting from the bases that constitute the discipline of commercial law, we will analyze the various legal, contractual and organizational problems that arise in these technologies and the proposed solutions to solve them.

SECTION II: Informal contracts (prof. MA. García Cestona).

This section focuses on the way organizations adapt to uncertainty by means of the design (and adoption) of a variety of informal arrangements and relationships where deviation, though not enforceable before courts, is costly to participants. Relationship contracts, in which the parties develop trust through repeated exchanges, lead to less costly responses to uncertainty by allowing a contingent redefinition of participant obligations whenever unexpected events modify initially agreed payoffs.

Evaluation

- Part I: A group assignment based on the content of weekly sessions will count for 50% of the course grade.

- Part II: An exam on topics discussed in class will count for 50% of the grade.