Description

In 2016, the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to two economists – Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström – for work in contract theory. In this lecture, Professor Klausner will discuss how this field of economics can inform the design and interpretation of complex business contracts. Taking examples of actual business deals from areas such as joint ventures, real estate acquisitions, trademark licenses and others, Professor Klausner will show how an economic perspective can reveal how contractual mechanisms respond to underlying business challenges or, when used without sufficient skill, introduce problems into contractual relationships.

About The Speaker
Michael Klausner is the Nancy and Charles Munger Professor of Business and Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. Professor Klausner is currently writing a book entitled Deals: The Economic Foundations of Business Transactions. He teaches a course by the same title, along with courses on corporate law, corporate governance, and regulation of financial institutions. Recent publications include Empirical Studies of Corporate Governance: Some Steps Forward and Some Not, in the Oxford Handbook of Corporate Law and Governance (2017), The ‘Corporate Contract’ Today, also in the Oxford Handbook of Corporate Law and Governance (2017), Fact and Fiction in Corporate Law and Governance, 65 Stan. L. Rev. 1325 (2013), Liquidation Rights and Incentive Misalignment in Start-up Financing, 98 Cornell L. Rev. 1399 (2013) (with Stephen Venuto). Before beginning his academic career, Professor Klausner was in private law practice with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher. He was also a law clerk for Judge David Bazelon on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice William Brennan on the United States Supreme Court. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (B.A) and Yale University (J.D. and M.A. in Economics). He will be a Kwa Geok Choo Distinguished Visitor at NUS Law in August 2017 where he will be teaching “Deals: The Economic Structure of Business Transaction”.