“The idea that deliberately constraining…
“The idea that deliberately constraining one’s own choices can actually leave a person better off in a negotiation is a very interesting one. [...]
Why don’t there exist companies that explicitly sign contracts with individuals or other entities for a fee, which would handicap the entities in some way that cannot be easily overturned and consequently give them negotiating leverage as a result.
One example I can think of is pertaining to wealthy individuals in California and other US States with Community Property laws. Given the high divorce rates in the US, it would be prudent for such individuals to have as tight prenuptial agreements as possible prior to getting married, to minimize financial loss in the event of a divorce and also to avoid financially incentivizing one’s spouse to initiate a divorce with a promise of a financial windfall. However there are some practical difficulties which might make many such individuals shy away from doing this. A couple of the practical issues are:
A. It is clearly rather unromantic to have to haggle with one’s fiancée and their lawyers regarding a prenuptial agreement. The implied “lack of belief” in the potential durability of the marriage might be a turn off for one’s partner and other close people involved.
B. The individuals themselves might get carried away by emotion and believe that they have found “the one” and assign a much lower probability of divorce or forcible concessions that they would need to make in future when faced with the threat of divorce. In such a situation, they would fail to realize that probably 50% of Americans who felt they found “the one” just like them, went on to eventually get divorced.
Now imagine the beneficial role a company signing such contracts could provide. The individual in question could sign a contract with this company stating that if they were to get married without a bullet proof pre-specified prenuptial agreement, the company could lay claim to half their net worth immediately after the wedding were registered. Ideally, the individual in question could sign such a contract when they were single or not seriously seeing anyone with the intention of getting married. [...]
Community property and other modern divorce laws essentially change the defaults with regard to what happens in the aftermath of a divorce, compared to how marriages worked prior to the existence of such laws. Such a contract would reset the default state to one where neither party would financially profit in the aftermath of a divorce. Most of the awkwardness comes when trying to override the default state with a bunch of legal riders at the time of a wedding.”
http://lesswrong.com/lw/29w/taking_the_awkwardness_out_of_a_prenup_a_game/
Christian Louboutin 04:38 on June 10, 2010 Permalink |
One again, your article is very nice
mazsa 22:42 on June 17, 2010 Permalink |
Thank you. I’m just quoting:)