This paper explores the power of threats in the absence of binding commitment. The threatener cannot commit to carry out the threat if the victim refuses payment, and cannot commit not to carry out the threat if payment is made. If exercising the threat is costly to the threatener, then the...

This paper explores the power of threats in the absence of binding commitment. The threatener cannot commit to carry out the threat if the victim refuses payment, and cannot commit not to carry out the threat if payment is made. If exercising the threat is costly to the threatener, then the...

This paper explores the power of threats in the absence of binding commitment. The threatener cannot commit to carrying out the threat if the victim refuses payment, and cannot commit to not carrying out the threat if payment is made. If exercising the threat is costly to the threatener, then...

This paper explores the power of threats in the absence of binding commitment. The threatener cannot commit to carrying out the threat if the victim refuses payment, and cannot commit to not carrying out the threat if payment is made. If exercising the threat is costly to the threatener, then...

A liquidity-constrained entrepreneur needs to raise capital to finance a business activity that may cause injuries to third parties --- the tort victims. Taking the level of borrowing as fixed, the entrepreneur finances the activity with senior (secured) debt in order to shield assets from the...

This paper considers settlement negotiations between a single defendant and $N$ plaintiffs when there are fixed costs of litigation. When making simultaneous take-it-or-leave-it offers to the plaintiffs, the defendant adopts a divide and conquer strategy. Plaintiffs settle their claims for less...

This paper reports further experimental results on exclusive dealing contracts. We extend Landeo and Spier’s [2009] work by studying Naked Exclusion in a strategic environment that involves a four-player, two-stage game. In addition to the roles of seller and buyers, our experimental...

This article studies the judicial resolution of business deadlock. Asset valuation, a necessary component of business divorce procedures, can pose serious problems in case of closely-held businesses such as general partnerships and limited liability companies (LLCs). Courts face the challenge of...

Can incumbent sellers and buyers use contracts with stipulated damages to extract surplus from entrants? We experimentally study the strategic environments of Aghion and Bolton (1987)and Spier and Whinston (1995). As predicted, contract renegotiation weakens the commitment power of stipulated...

Shotguns clauses are commonly included in the business agreements of partnerships and limited liability companies (LLCs), but the role of o fferor typically remains unassigned. In a common-value, one-sided asymmetric information setting, unfair and ineffcient outcomes occur with an unassigned o...