Getting Incentives Right by Cooter and Porat

This is a very good book, which milks insights out of two dead-ish fields–torts and contracts–and one that has never come to life–restitution. I’m impressed by the creativity of the authors. My favorite of their many ideas is “anti-insurance”–where two contract parties agree that if the promisor breaches, he must pay damages to a third party (who pays for the privilege) rather than to the promisee. This mechanism prevents the promisee from relying excessively on performance while preserving the promisor’s incentive not to breach unless efficient to do so. It’s called anti-insurance because it eliminates the promisee’s right to damages (a kind of insurance) in case of breach.