'Buyer-option' contracts, in which the buyer selects the product variant to be traded and chooses whether to accept delivery, are often used to solve holdup problems. We present a simple game that focuses sharply on subgames in which the buyer proposes inefficient actions in order to improve his...

We test recent theory on the benefits of auctions and bargaining as alternative procurement mechanisms using data on the procurement of medical devices by Italian hospitals. Theory suggests that auctions perform well when cost control is the key concern, but are less effective at producing the...

Hart & Moore (1999) construct a model to show that contracts perform poorly when the state of the world is unverifiable and renegotiation cannot be ruled out. They implicitly assume that one player can extort payment from another by threatening to take an inefficient action which hurts both of...