ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the definitions and premises underlying the concept of bargain, upon which theories of transaction costs such as R. H. Coase's are predicated and also examines the concept of contract, the economic implications of which deserve more specific attention. Ian R. Macneil argues that traditional Willistonian contract theory approaches the planning of future business relations by creating rights which are bargained for in the present, thus assimilating planning into a current transaction. The concept of the competitive, two-party bargain as conceived by the Coase theorem falls short of providing an economic formulation to parallel the new legal analyses being developed in the modern theory of contract. Two-party contract in legal theory is being increasingly distinguished as a phenomenon where parties with long-term planning objectives are primarily concerned with structuring relational arrangements to provide a continuum of stability productive of reciprocal mutuality. Relational contract theory deals with the other end of the spectrum from antitrust law.
