This paper clarifies the role of passive incentives and targeted government R&D support programs in R&D policy. Using a principal-agent framework, a theoretical model of firm R&D behavior is developed, and suggests that without targeted R&D support programs many R&D projects with the greatest...

Contract law's liquidated damage rules prevent enforcement of contractual damage measures that require the promisor, if it breaches, to transfer to the promisee a sum that exceeds the net gain the promisee expected to make from performance; but these rules permit the promisor to transfer less than...

A bankruptcy system is believed necessary to solve a coordination problem among the creditors of a distressed firm. The firm should survive if its going concern value exceeds its liquidation value, but each creditor, who is assumed to hold debt that is small in relation to the total, has too...

The separation of control and ownership – the ability of a small group effectively to control a company though holding a minority of its cash flow rights – is common throughout the world, but also is commonly decried. The control group, it is thought, will use its position to consume...

This paper explores the possibility for efficient long term contracts among traders with changing and privately known incentives for exchange. We analyze a negotiation process that enables parties to adapt the default rules of exchange to changes in their preferences for trade. The selection of...