Our theory of costly contracts emphasizes that contractual rights can be of two types: specific rights and residual rights. When it is costly to list all specific rights over assets in the contract, it may be optimal to let one party purchase all residual rights. Ownership is the purchase of...

Consider an economy subject to two kinds of shocks: (a) an observable shock to the relative demand for final goods which causes dispersion in relative prices, and (b) shocks, unobservable by workers, to the technology for transforming intermediate goods into final goods. A worker in a particular...

This paper provides a framework for addressing the question of when transactions should be carried out within a firm and when through the market. Following Grossman and Hart, we identify a firm with the assets that its owners control. We argue that the crucial difference for party 1 between...

We consider an economy that has to decide how assets are to be used. Agents have ideas, but these ideas conflict. We suppose that decisionâ€making authority is determined by hierarchy: each asset has a chain of command, and the most senior person with an idea exercises authority. We analyze...

It is sometimes asserted that rational speculative activity must result in more stable prices because speculators buy when prices are low and sell when they are high. This is incorrect. Speculators buy when the chances of price appreciation are high, selling when the chances are low. Speculative...