This paper provides a non-technical discussion of the incomplete contracting approach to the theory of the firm developed by Grossman and Hart (1986). This approach offers an answer to the questions regarding the boundaries of the firm first raised by Coase (1937).

The theory of contracts is one of the most active research areas in economics. While classic contract theory failed to account for institutions such as property rights and authority, the theory of incomplete contracts has overcome these conceptual problems and produced a variety of interesting...

Kolstad, Ulen and Johnson (1990) have conjectured that exclusive use of negligence liability leads to suboptimal choice of precaution in the presence of uncertainty and that ex ante regulation can correct these inefficiencies. We complete their argument by making a mild additional premise.

In a pioneering approach towards the explanation of the phenomenon of "yes man" behavior in organizations, Prendergast (1993) argued that incentive contracts in employment relationships generally make a worker distort his privately acquired information. This would imply that there is a trade-off...

This paper offers a non-technical discussion of the literature on the theoretical foundations of the incomplete contracting approach.

In this paper we discuss "lock in effects" and "hold-up problems" (which occur when relationship-specific investments are sunk).

Interest rate derivatives are among the most actively traded financial instruments in the main currency areas. With values of positions reacting immediately to the underlying index of daily interbank rates, manipulation has become an increasing challenge for the operational implementation of...

A consistent pair specifies a set of "rational" strategies for both players such that a strategy is rational if and only if it is a best reply to a Bayesian belief that gives positive probability to every rational strategy of the opponent and probability zero otherwise. Although the idea...