In the contract-theoretic literature, there is a vital debate about whether contracts can mitigate the hold-up problem, in particular when renegotiation cannot be prevented. Ultimately, this question has to be answered empirically. As a first step, we have conducted a laboratory experiment with...

In this paper it is argued that privatization is not the only alternative to public ownership. Adopting the incomplete contract approach, it is shown that partial privatization, i.e. joint ownership, may well turn out to be the optimal property rights regime, if the trade-offs that have been...

This paper analyzes the effects of network positions and individual risk attitudes on individuals' strategic decisions in an experiment where actions are strategic substitutes. The game theoretic basis for our experiment is the model of Bramoulleacute; and Kranton (2007). In particular, we are...

We model takeovers as a bargaining process and explain termination fees for, both, the target and the acquirer, subject to parties' bargaining power and outside options. In equilibrium, termination fees are offered by firms with outside options in exchange for a greater share of merger...

We consider second-price and first-price auctions in the symmetric independent private values framework. We modify the standard model by the assumption that the bidders have reference-based utility, where a publicly announced reserve price has some influence on the reference point. It turns out...

The fact that according to the celebrated Coase theorem rational parties always try to exploit all gains from trade is usually taken as an argument against the necessity of government intervention through Pigouvian taxation in order to correct externalities. However, we show that the hold-up...