Teoría del Incumplimiento Eficiente del Contrato:

The work you hold in your hands is the product of careful research and—it goes without saying—reflection by its author, who from a very early age stood out in the classroom for her thoroughness, critical thinking, and willingness to engage in constructive dialogue.

I had the pleasure of accompanying Deisy Villalobos, as her thesis advisor, during the conception and construction of this document, which at the time served as a requirement for her law degree and which is now being presented to the student community and the Academy in general to contribute to the debate on the possible application of the Anglo-Saxon theory of efficient breach of contract in contractual matters.

The work is divided into four chapters. The first of these, entitled "The 'Efficient Breach Theory' as a Vindication of Economic Criteria within Modern Contract Law Frameworks," studies the origin and evolution of the efficient breach of contract theory in Common Law systems, and then determines its potential compatibility with civil law legal systems such as Colombia.

In the second chapter, entitled "The Impact of Economic Incentives on the Negotiating Behavior of Market Agents. Reasonable Harmonization between Economic Criteria and the Classical Dogmas of Contract Law," the author identifies the challenges that contract law faces in the face of current business dynamics, in which the vindication of economic principles is evident, as they constitute guides or drivers that determine the contractual conduct of market agents, thereby creating the need for reasonable recognition of economic principles within legal institutions—particularly within contract law. In this way, it is evident that the current dynamics of modern contracting require a reasonable and logical harmonization of the legal dogma of the notion of contract and a more realistic legal-economic vision that considers the role of the negotiation mechanism within the market "as an instrument of dynamism in business, as opposed to a traditionally static approach." This does not imply reducing it to an instrument of resource maximization, much less to a simple technique for enforcing obligations, or neglecting the ethical, social, and legal purposes that the negotiation mechanism par excellence pursues.