This chapter surveys major issues arising in the economic analysis of contract law. It begins with an introductory discussion of scope and methodology, and then addresses four main topics that correspond to the major doctrinal divisions of the law of contracts. These divisions include freedom of...

We discuss a principal-agent model in which the principal has the opportunity to include a non-compete agreement in the employment contract. We show that not imposing such an agreement can be beneficial for the principal as the possibility to leave the firm generates implicit incentives for the...

We propose a theory of ex post inefficient renegotiation that is based on loss aversion. When two parties write a long-term contract that has to be renegotiated after the realization of the state of the world, they take the initial contract as a reference point to which they compare gains and...

This paper analyzes bilateral contracting in an environment with contractual incompleteness and asymmetric information. One party (the seller) makes an unverifiable quality choice and the other party (the buyer) has private information about its valuation. A simple exit option contract, which...

We propose a theory of inefficient renegotiation that is based on loss aversion. When two parties write a long-term contract that has to be renegoti- ated after the realization of the state of the world, they take the initial contract as a reference point to which they compare gains and losses...

It is well known that delegating the play of a game to an agent via incentive contracts may serve as a commitment device and hence provide a strategic advantage. Previous literature has shown that any Nash equilibrium outcome of an extensive-form principals-only game can be supported as a...

The standard economic analysis of the insured-insurer relationship under moral hazard postulates a simplistic setup that hardly explains the many features of an insurance contract. We extend this setup to include the situation that the insured was facing at the time of the accident and the...

Trust between parties should drive the negotiation and design of contract: if parties did not trust each others' reaction to unplanned events, they might agree to pay higher costs of negotiation to complete contracts. Using a unique sample of U.S. principal-agent consulting contracts and a...

A loss averse buyer and seller face an uncertain environment. Should they write a long-term contract or wait until the state of the world has realized? I show that simple long-term contracts perform better than insinuated in Herweg and Schmidt (2015), even though loss aversion makes...

A loss-averse buyer and seller face an uncertain environment. Should they write a long-term contract or wait until the state of the world is realized? I show that simple long-term contracts perform better than insinuated in Herweg and Schmidt (2015), even though loss aversion makes renegotiation...