Orit Gan on A Feminist Economic Perspective to Contract Law

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the increasing economic inequality which the pandemic has made glaringly obvious, there’s been a renewed interest in revisiting the traditional law and economics approach to contract law.  Given that contracts are the tools of capitalism, it makes sense that contracts scholars are rethinking approaches to contract law. 

One scholar who is rethinking the current law and economics frame is Orit Gan of Sapir Academic College, who has an article, A Feminist Economic Perspective on Contract Law:  Promissory Estoppel as an Example, forthcoming in the Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, that looks at promissory estoppel through “feminist economics” approach.  Here’s the abstract:

Economic analysis of contract law is a highly influential theoretical approach to contract law. At the same time, feminist analysis of contract law offers an important critical approach to the field. However, feminist economics, a prominent alternative approach to mainstream neo-classical economics drawing from both economic theory and feminist theory, has only been applied scarcely and sporadically to contract law. This Article seeks to bridge this gap, and to apply the key features of feminist economics to an analysis of the doctrine of promissory estoppel. This Article uses promissory estoppel as an example with which to demonstrate a feminist economic analysis of contract law.