An Optional European Contract Code in the Institutional Competition between European Contract Laws

Abstract

Whether an optional European contract code would in fact be desirable for European contract law can only be judged by assessing its effect on the competition between multiple contract codes on the European market for contract laws. In this section I therefore develop an economic model of the institutional competition in European contract law. The model examines the competitive processes that take place in European contract law from a conceptual perspective, applying economic reasoning. It assumes an analogy between legal products and economic products. This assumption is necessary in order to apply economic reasoning and the theory of transaction costs to the competitive relationship between national contract laws and optional contract laws.