Contracts commit individuals to a future course of action and create feelings of entitlement on the parties. In a contractual gap, parties’ duties and rights are not univocal, and while promisors will often feel entitled to breach, promisees will feel entitled to receive the promised performance. This divergence leads to disputes, aggrievement, and retaliatory behavior whenever one of the parties feels shortchanged. Remedies for breach are then apt not only to induce performance by promisors, but also to minimize promisees’ aggrievement, reduce retaliation, and thereby keep the peace in society. This article reports results from an experiment that investigates under what circumstances promisees retaliate to breach and to what extent expectation damages fulfill the function of crowding out retaliatory behavior. It reveals how norms of fairness play a fundamental role in shaping parties’ reactions to breach, as promisees did not punish any violation of a prior agreement. They rather punished breach when the promisor profited from it, and the outcome was an unfair distribution of the gains from trade. Neither loss of expectancy nor the inefficiency of the result induced retaliation. Expectation damages successfully crowded out retaliation by disappointed promisees, and thereby avoided high welfare losses from decentralized forms of punishment of perceived wrongs.

中文翻译：

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报复，救济和合同

合同使个人承担未来的行动方针，并在当事方中产生应有的感觉。在合同空白中，当事方的职责和权利并非一帆风顺，尽管许诺者通常会感到有违约的权利，但许诺者将有资格获得承诺的履行。每当一方感到不足时，这种分歧都会导致争执，委屈和报复行为。违规补救措施不仅易于促使应许者履行义务，而且还可以最大程度地减少许诺者的委身，减少报复，从而保持社会和平。本文报道了一项实验的结果，该实验研究了在什么情况下承诺进行报复，以及预期损害在多大程度上满足了排挤报复行为的功能。它揭示了公平准则如何在塑造当事方对违约行为的反应中起根本作用，因为承诺者并未惩罚任何违反先前协议的行为。当承诺者从中获利时，他们宁愿惩罚违约行为，其结果是贸易收益的不公平分配。预期损失或结果无效都不会导致报复。期望赔偿成功地阻止了失望的诺言所带来的报复，从而避免了分散地惩罚感知过的错误而造成的高额福利损失。预期损失或结果无效都不会导致报复。期望赔偿成功地阻止了失望的诺言所带来的报复，从而避免了分散地惩罚感知过的错误而造成的高额福利损失。预期损失或结果无效都不会导致报复。期望赔偿成功地使失望的诺言阻止了报复行为，从而避免了分散地惩罚感知过的错误而造成的高额福利损失。