The paper reconsiders the hold-up problem in long-term bilateral trade with specific investments. In our framework, the parties face several trading opportunities (goods) whose characteristics cannot be described at the start of the relationship. Specifically, there exists an investment...

We explore the dynamic evolution of property rights regimes in R&D alliances using the incomplete contract approach pioneered by Grossman, Hart and Moore (Hart and Moore, Journal of Political Economy (1990), and Grossman and Hart, Journal of Political Economy (1986)). In contrast to the standard...

Much real-world contracting involves finding new clauses to add to a basic agreement, clauses which may or may not increase the welfare of both parties. The parties must decide which complications to propose, how closely to examine the other side's proposals, and whether to accept them. This...

Recent evidence highlights the importance of social norms in many economic relations. Many of these relationships are long-term and provide repeated game incentives for performance. We experimentally investigate interaction effects of reciprocity and repeated game incentives in two treatments...

In this Paper we provide experimental evidence indicating that incentive contracts may cause a strong crowding out of voluntary cooperation. This crowding-out effect constitutes costs of incentive provision that have been largely neglected by economists. In our experiments the crowding-out...

We show that concerns for fairness may have dramatic consequences for the optimal provision of incentives in a moral hazard context. Incentive contracts that are optimal when there are only selfish actors become inferior when some agents are concerned with fairness. Conversely, contracts that...

Why do we observe some LDCs objecting to the prospect of a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), although they have been keen to liberalize investment in preferential agreements in recent years? In this Paper, we analyse the issue of MAI implementation and assess the welfare consequences...