The evidence suggests that relational contracting and legal rules play an important role incredit markets but on the basis of the prevailing field data it is difficult to pin down their causalimpact. Here we show experimentally that relational incentives are a powerful causaldeterminant for the...

This paper discusses how economists' views of firms' financial structure decisions have evolved from treating firms' profitability as given; to acknowledging that managerial actions affect profitability; to recognizing that firm value depends on the allocation of decision or control rights. The...

Effective collaboration within and between organizations requires efficient adaptation to unforeseen change. We study how parties build relational contracts that achieve this goal. We focus on the "clarity problem"---whether parties have a shared understanding of the promises they make each...

This paper develops a positive model of informal contracting in which rewards and punishments are not determined by an ex ante optimal plan but instead express the ex post moral sentiments of the arbitrating party. We consider a subjective performance evaluation problem in which a principal can...

Effective organizations are able not only to coordinate their members on efficient strategies but also to adapt members' strategies to unforeseen change in an efficient manner. We explore whether part of organizational culture - namely, relational contracts that facilitate both coordination and...