Benjamin Klein's contributions to law and economics

Josh Wright, of the School of Law at George Mason University, has written a piece on the contributions of Benjamin Klein to law and economics. The paper is a chapter for the forthcoming volume "Pioneers of Law and Economics" (Lloyd R. Cohen and Joshua D. Wright eds.). Klein has produced pioneering analysis of the hold-up problem, the theory of the firm, vertical restraints, franchising, and the role of contract terms in facilitating self-enforcement of contractual relationships. Peter Klein has noted

Klein’s 1978 paper with Armen Alchian and Robert Crawford and his 1981 paper with Keith Leffler are of course part of the organizational economics canon. His ongoing debate with Ronald Coase on the GM-Fisher Body case has helped clarify important issues on the role of asset specificity in vertical integration.