Contingent ownership structures are prevalent in joint ventures. We offer an explanation based on the investment incentives provided by such an arrangement. We consider a holdup problem in which two parties make relationship-specific investments sequentially to generate a joint surplus in the...

In this article, we analyze the canonical hold-up model of Hart and Moore under the assumption that the courts can verify delivery of the good by the seller. It is shown that no further renegotiation design is necessary to achieve the first best: simple option contracts, which give the seller...

The paper offers a selective survey on the incomplete contracts approach to privatization. Furthermore, a simple model of privatization to an owner-manager is developed in which different allocations of ownership rights lead to different allocations of inside information about the firm which in...