Last week, I attended the For
Love Or Money Conference at Washington University in St. Louis,
co-organized by Marion Crain and me, which I blogged about earlier. The event was a success, I think – the
papers and comments were interesting and the discussion lively. The conference brought together folks
from different disciplines, including law, economics, sociology, psychology, and
gender studies, as well as from different subfields within law, such as
corporate, family, property, contract, and other legal disciplines.
I’ll refrain from saying too much about the papers or the comments at this time, as most folks will continue to revise their drafts in response to feedback at the conference, and the discussants have not yet written their papers. But I’ll at least attempt to give a brief flavor of what transpired so that you can make a note to keep an eye out for papers that might interest you as people post them to SSRN over the summer (which is only weeks away now, hallelujah!)
Julie Nelson (Economics, University of Massachusetts Boston) kicked off the show with, Does Profit-Seeking Rule Out Love? Evidence (or Not) From Economics and Law, which argues that corporate profit-maximization is not seen in practice nearly as often as generally assumed, nor mandated by the "laws of economics," nor commanded by statutory or case law. Rather, Nelson contends, the idea was invented and has maintained its power to shape our thinking through mutually-reinforcing historical, social, political, and psychological processes. Bill Bratton (Georgetown, soon to be Penn, law) was the respondent, who – in addition to his substantive comments -- humorously noted that he liked the article because it reminded him of some his own early articles, though he eventually stopped writing on the topic because no one paid attention to him.
Yuval Feldman (Bar-Ilan University-Israel, Law), who flew all the way from Israel for the event, next presented The Complexity of Disentangling Intrinsic and Extrinsic Compliance Motivations: Theoretical and Empirical Insights From the Behavioral Analysis of Law. The paper seeks to improve our understanding of the interrelations between "love" and money in legal contexts, through discussion of a series of theoretical dilemmas related to the interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic compliance motivations. Discussant Rebecca Hollander-Blumoff (Washington University, Law), whose research focuses on the intersection of law and psychology in the context of dispute resolution, offered thoughtful commentary on the nature of extrinsic versus intrinsic motivations and, indeed, whether and why such distinctions matter.
I very much enjoyed the lively exchange between Laura Rosenbury (Washington University, Law) and her discussant, Ethan Leib (University of California-Hastings, Law) on Friends at Work. From what I gather, this is an ongoing debate between these two on the nature of friendship and its proper place in law. At least some of the debate seemed to revolve around whether “friends” have sex (with Rosenbury believing that they could and Leib that they could not). I’m sure they’re appalled that this is my primary takeaway from the exchange, but what do you expect when two interesting, intelligent people start arguing about sex halfway through a long conference afternoon?
Marion Crain (Washington University, Law) and her discussant, Scott Baker, (Washington University, Law) argued less (and failed to mention sex at all, as I recall), but were still engaging. In Arm's Length Intimacy: Employment as Relationship, Crain argues that employment should be reconceptualized as an affective and often intimate relationship, one that is far richer than the economic model of an exchange of dollars for labor that currently guides employment policy and law. Baker responded that employment relationships were different from intimate ones in important ways that suggest the law should continue to distinguish employment relations from intimate ones.
Mary Anne Case (University
of Chicago, Law) and discussant Bob Pollak (Washington University,
Economics) discussed Case’s paper, Enforcing
Contracts in an Ongoing Marriage.
Case argues that marriage in the U.S. by and large remains subject to
what Saul Levmore has dubbed the rule of “Love It Or Leave It:” Courts
generally are closed to those who seek judicial enforcement of bargains or
judicial resolution of disputes in an ongoing marriage and Case questions why
this should be so. Pollak, who has
written extensively on matters relating to the economics of the family, offered
many thoughtful insights and suggestions on bargaining within the family unit.
I'll be back later with Part II.
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