IN recent years a number of important papers have appeared, all trying to apply economic analysis to the issue just when specific performance should be used in preference to damages as a remedy for breach of contract. Kronman has argued for the efficiency of the traditional commonlaw distinction between unique and nonunique goods.' Schwartz has refuted Kronman's analysis and advocated general specific performance.2 Shavell has suggested that there is an economic case for the French rule of specific performance for contracts "to give" and damages for contracts "to do."3 This paper will develop (Sections II-IV) a new model of contract remedies and will use it to analyze the common law, in the process integrating into the general economic model of the common law the action for the agreed sum. The model and its applications will show that Shavell's analysis, though suggestive, is not elaborate enough to account for the common-law rules. Section V will seek to refute Schwartz's analysis. Sections VI and VII offer some comment on method and on comparative law.