The article discusses the origins of the U-shaped average cost curve, which is one of the most widely used tools in microeconomic analysis. Its widespread use leads many to consider it as a basic tool, obscuring the fact that the graph of the U-shaped average cost curve is part of a complex...

A principal needs a worker for the production of a good. The worker can be hired as an internal agent, or an external agent under a contract. These two organizational modes correspond to in-house production and outsourcing, respectively. In each case, the agent earns experience benefits: future...

A debate around the book by Denis Segrestin ("Les chantiers du manager", Paris, Colin, 2004) gives an opportunity to hope for deeper and rigorous anaytical frameworks about organizational theories of firms. Two perspectives are suggested: firms as collective action systems open to their...

Including real options in firms ’ value raises numerous difficulties. Limitations concerning the relevance of option pricing models outside financial markets are the most salient, but carrying out a valuation implies other assumptions, especially on firms’ governance. In particular,...

We embed an incomplete contracts setting into a model of economic geography with heterogeneous firms whose process of production can be geographically separated. Because of the presence of international incomplete contracts, trade liberalization is not necessarily welfare-enhancing. We show that...

We embed an incomplete contracts setting into a model of economic geography with heterogeneous firms whose process of production can be geographically separated. Because of the presence of international incomplete contracts, trade liberalization is not necessarily welfare-enhancing. We show that...

Twenty-five papers survey and illustrate approaches to and applications of contract economics. Earlier versions of most of the papers were published in special issue no. 92 of the Revue d'Economie Industrielle entitled "The Economics of Contracts in Prospect and Retrospect" (2000). Papers...