While specific performance can be in the form of any type of forced action, it is usually to complete a previously established transaction, thus being the most effective remedy in protecting the expectation interest of the innocent party to a contract.
[citation needed] As with all equitable remedies, orders of specific performance are discretionary, so their availability depends on their appropriateness in the circumstances.
[10] However, modern decisions in at least one common law jurisdiction (Ontario) have argued that "uniqueness" is only a proxy for the real conceptual justification of specific performance, which is that it is fundamentally an open-ended rule of justice and will be awarded wherever the plaintiff shows that the land in question, rather than damages, better serves justice between the parties in all the circumstances.
Traditionally, equity would only grant specific performance with respect to contracts involving chattels where the goods were unique in character, such as art, heirlooms, and the like.
Economists, generally, take the view that specific performance should be reserved to exceptional settings, because it is costly to administer and may deter promisors from engaging in efficient breach.
Professor Steven Shavell, for example, famously argued that specific performance should only be reserved to contracts to convey property and that in all other cases, money damages would be superior.
[14] There is also uncertainty arising from empirical research whether specific performance provides greater value to promisees than money damages, given the difficulties of enforcement.
Hart and Moore (1988) have shown that if only at-will contracts are enforceable, then the parties have insufficient incentives to make relationship-specific investments.