The New Realism in Business Law and Economics: Introduction

This is the introduction to a symposium, The New Realism in Business Law and Economics, published in the Wisconsin Law Review. The symposium features papers from Afra Afsharipour, Robert Anderson IV, Elizabeth deFontenay, Sean Griffith, Mitu Gulati (with Steven Choi and Robert Scott), Claire Hill, Ann Lipton, Matthew Jennejohn, Jeremy McClane, and Yaron Nili. The papers all focus on real-world aspects of business law and practice that can profitably be explained using the tools of law and economics, but as it has increasingly come to integrate findings from behavioral law and economics and other fields, and take advantage of advances in computing. Among the topics covered are why complex business contracts look the way they do, what motivates frequent shareholder litigants, and analyses of gender and independent directors in corporate governance. The explanations are ‘as simple as possible—but no simpler.’ Theory informs practice; but practice also informs theory.