Recently, a number of commentators have questioned the validity of the use of default rules in contract law, by challenging the assumptions that lead, in the first place, to the wide use of default rules. (See e.g., the University of Chicago Law Review Symposium on Formalism Revisited, 1999)....

For many years employers have been confronted with the issue of whether to allow employees to openly discuss their pay, or instead to require employees to keep information regarding their compensation confidential. Survey data indicates that a significant sector of private sector employers in...