Whereas in some industries retailers distribute the products of all suppliers, in other industries they differentiate themselves from their rivals by becoming the exclusive distributors of some products, which results in incomplete distribution networks. To study this phenomenon, I analyze a...

In many matching environments, agreements are multilateral and/or have externalities. We show that stability in these environments depends on agents' aggregate choice behavior. Two different conditions on aggregate choice ensure a stable outcome exists. One applies when contracts are...

This article introduces a model of decentralized markets with frictions. In our framework, utility is imperfectly transferable between agents that can only trade through bipartite contracting. Economic outcomes are defined as pairs of a flow vector and a price vector.We prove the existence of a...

The formation of consumer expectations for digital products affects competition between digital platforms that offer competing products. Unfair competition may occur if the competitive outcome is influenced my misled expectations, notably if the company that wins the competition either misled...

This paper studies a large class of multi-agent contracting models with the property that agents' payoffs constitute a weighted potential game. Multiple equilibria arise due to agents' strategic interactions. I fully characterize a contracting scheme that is optimal to the principal for a large...

This paper studies a large class of multi-agent contracting models with the property that agents' payoffs constitute a weighted potential game. Multiple equilibria arise due to agents' strategic interactions. I fully characterize a contracting scheme that is optimal for the principal for all...

Formal institutions and social capital interact with each other in multiple ways. We argue and show empirically at the cross-country level that in the case of group lending, contract enforcement complements bonding social capital and substitutes for bridging one. It means that payoff to social...

The recognition that contracts have a time dimension has given rise to a very abundant literature since the end of the 1980s. In such a dynamic context, the contract may take place over several periods and develop repeated interactions. Then, the principal topics of the analysis are commitment,...

We describe and analyze a contractual environment that allows a role for an active court. The model we analyze is the same as in Anderlini, Felli, and Postlewaite (2006). An active court can improve on the outcome that the parties would achieve without it. The institutional role of the court is...

The rise of the network as a form of economic organization renders problematic our standard understanding of how capitalism is governed. As the governance of production shifts from vertical integration to horizontal contract, a puzzle arises: how do contracts, presumed to be susceptible to...