This article analyzes a much debated clause in the 1996 coalition contract between SPD and F.D.P. in Rheinland-Pfalz. Two parties write a contract, based on which decisions under incomplete information have to be made at a later point in time. It is shown that a complex complete contract can...

We identify and investigate the basic 'hold-up problem' which arises whenever each party to a contract has to pay some ex-ante cost for the contract to become feasible. We then proceed to show that, under plausible circumstances, a 'contractual solution' to this hold-up problem is not available....

The standard property-rights theory of the firm assumes that prior to investing in human capital, team members meet and negotiate asset ownership. This paper endogenizes the event sequence in a matching model of market equilibrium. Equilibria exist in which, for strategic and efficiency reasons,...

This paper investigates, in a simple risk-sharing framework, the extent to which the incompleteness of contracts could be attributed to the complexity costs associated with the writing and the implementation of contracts. We show that, given any measure of complexity in a very general class, it...

The paper studies agents' general or specific investment decisions under different ownership structures in a thin, decentralized market where each agent's decision affects the decisions and welfare of other agents mainly through indirect market linkages. It focuses on the roles of both...

Summary Transaction costs are an obstacle to the efficient operation of selective contracting. Health care delivery systems (§140 a-d SGB V) and selective contracting between networks of service providers and purchasers are advocated as an effective method to improve the performance of the...

The effects of the quality of institutions on economic development and comparative advantage have been so far investigated separately. This paper proposes a theoretical framework in which trade patterns and growth rates are jointly determined by international differences in contract enforcement...

We propose a model of trade agreements in which contracting is costly, and as a consequence the optimal agreement may be incomplete. In spite of its simplicity, the model yields rich predictions on the structure of the optimal trade agreement and how this depends on the fundamentals of the...

Given symmetric information, in a standard hold-up problem a buyer's investment incentives are always increasing in his bargaining power. While this result is robust under one-sided private information, it can be overturned under two-sided private information.

The paper studies agents' general or specific investment decisions under different ownership structures in a thin, decentralized market where each agent's decision affects the decisions and welfare of other agents mainly through indirect market linkages. It focuses on the roles of both...