The Economics of Contracts

The Economics of Contracts
Author: Eric Brousseau
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 604
Release: 2002-10-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521893138

A 2002 survey of economics of contracts appealing to scholars in economics, management and law.

The Economics of Contracts

The Economics of Contracts
Author: Bernard Salanié
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2005-03-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262195259

A concise introduction to the theory of contracts, emphasizing basic tools that allow the reader to understand the main theoretical models; revised and updated throughout for this edition.

Advanced Microeconomics for Contract, Institutional, and Organizational Economics

Advanced Microeconomics for Contract, Institutional, and Organizational Economics
Author: W. Bentley MacLeod
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2022-04-05
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262046873

A graduate textbook on microeconomics, covering decision theory, game theory, and the foundations of contract theory, with a unique focus on the empirical. This graduate-level text on microeconomics, covering such topics as decision theory, game theory, bargaining theory, contract theory, trade under asymmetric information, and relational contract theory, is unique in its emphasis on the interplay between theory and evidence. It reviews the microeconomic theory of exchange “from the ground up,” aiming to produce a set of models and hypotheses amenable to empirical exploration, with particular focus on models that are useful for the study of contracts, institutions, and organizations. It explores research that extends price theory to the exchange of commodities when markets are incomplete, discussing recent developments in the field. Topics covered include the relationship between theory and evidence; decision theory as it is used in contract theory and institutional design; game theory; axiomatic and strategic bargaining theory; agency theory and the class of models that are considered to constitute contract theory, with discussions of moral hazard and trade with asymmetric information; and the theory of relational contracts. The final chapter offers a nontechnical review that provides a guide to which model is the most appropriate for a particular application. End-of-chapter exercises help students expand their understanding of the material, and an appendix provides brief introduction to optimization theory and the welfare theorem of general equilibrium theory. Students are assumed to be familiar with general equilibrium theory and basic constrained optimization theory.

Contract Theory

Contract Theory
Author: Patrick Bolton
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 746
Release: 2004-12-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780262025768

A comprehensive introduction to contract theory, emphasizing common themes and methodologies as well as applications in key areas. Despite the vast research literature on topics relating to contract theory, only a few of the field's core ideas are covered in microeconomics textbooks. This long-awaited book fills the need for a comprehensive textbook on contract theory suitable for use at the graduate and advanced undergraduate levels. It covers the areas of agency theory, information economics, and organization theory, highlighting common themes and methodologies and presenting the main ideas in an accessible way. It also presents many applications in all areas of economics, especially labor economics, industrial organization, and corporate finance. The book emphasizes applications rather than general theorems while providing self-contained, intuitive treatment of the simple models analyzed. In this way, it can also serve as a reference for researchers interested in building contract-theoretic models in applied contexts.The book covers all the major topics in contract theory taught in most graduate courses. It begins by discussing such basic ideas in incentive and information theory as screening, signaling, and moral hazard. Subsequent sections treat multilateral contracting with private information or hidden actions, covering auction theory, bilateral trade under private information, and the theory of the internal organization of firms; long-term contracts with private information or hidden actions; and incomplete contracts, the theory of ownership and control, and contracting with externalities. Each chapter ends with a guide to the relevant literature. Exercises appear in a separate chapter at the end of the book.

Seduction by Contract

Seduction by Contract
Author: Oren Bar-Gill
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2012-08-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 019966336X

Seduction by Contract explains how consumer contracts emerge from market forces and consumer psychology. Consumers' predictable mistakes - they are short-sighted, optimistic, and imperfectly rational - compel sellers to compete by hiding the true costs of products in complex, misleading contracts. Only better law can overcome the market's failure.

Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure

Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure
Author: Oliver Hart
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 1995-10-05
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0191521728

This book provides a framework for thinking about economic instiutions such as firms. The basic idea is that institutions arise in situations where people write incomplete contracts and where the allocation of power or control is therefore important. Power and control are not standard concepts in economic theory. The book begins by pointing out that traditional approaches cannot explain on the one hand why all transactions do not take place in one huge firm and on the other hand why firms matter at all. An incomplete contracting or property rights approach is then developed. It is argued that this approach can throw light on the boundaries of firms and on the meaning of asset ownership. In the remainder of the book, incomplete contacting ideas are applied to understand firms' financial decisions, in particular, the nature of debt and equity (why equity has votes and creditors have foreclosure rights); the capital structure decisions of public companies; optimal bankruptcy procedure; and the allocation of voting rights across a company's shares. The book is written in a fairly non-technical style and includes many examples. It is aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate students, academic and business economists, and lawyers as well as those with an interest in corporate finance, privatization and regulation, and transitional issues in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and China. Little background knowledge is required, since the concepts are developed as the book progresses and the existing literature is fully reviewed.

What We Owe Each Other

What We Owe Each Other
Author: Minouche Shafik
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2022-08-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 069120764X

From one of the leading policy experts of our time, an urgent rethinking of how we can better support each other to thrive Whether we realize it or not, all of us participate in the social contract every day through mutual obligations among our family, community, place of work, and fellow citizens. Caring for others, paying taxes, and benefiting from public services define the social contract that supports and binds us together as a society. Today, however, our social contract has been broken by changing gender roles, technology, new models of work, aging, and the perils of climate change. Minouche Shafik takes us through stages of life we all experience—raising children, getting educated, falling ill, working, growing old—and shows how a reordering of our societies is possible. Drawing on evidence and examples from around the world, she shows how every country can provide citizens with the basics to have a decent life and be able to contribute to society. But we owe each other more than this. A more generous and inclusive society would also share more risks collectively and ask everyone to contribute for as long as they can so that everyone can fulfill their potential. What We Owe Each Other identifies the key elements of a better social contract that recognizes our interdependencies, supports and invests more in each other, and expects more of individuals in return. Powerful, hopeful, and thought-provoking, What We Owe Each Other provides practical solutions to current challenges and demonstrates how we can build a better society—together.

Contracting in the New Economy

Contracting in the New Economy
Author: David Frydlinger
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2021-05-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3030650995

Today’s business environment is constantly evolving, filled with volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity and driven by digital transformation, globalization, and the need to creating value through innovation. These shifts demand that organizations view contracting through a different lens. Since it is impossible to predict every what-if scenario in a transactional contract, organizations in strategic and complex partnerships must shift to a mindset of shared goals and objectives built upon a strong foundation of transparency and trust, working together to mitigate risk much better than merely shifting risk to the weaker party. Contracting in the New Economy helps you to not only develop this mindset – but also offers the practical tools needed to embrace the social side of contracting, enabling your organization to harness the value creating potential of formal relational contracts. Briefly sharing the theoretical foundations that prove relational contracting works, it goes well beyond theory by providing powerful examples of relational contracting principles in practice. In addition, the authors provide a practical and proven approach for helping you to put relational contracting theory into practice for your own relationships. First by providing a framework for approaching any contracting situation and helping organizations finding the best contract model for each situation. And then by sharing five proven steps you can take to create an effective relational contract for you own strategic and complex business relationships. For anyone involved in developing contracts —lawyers, in-house counsels, contract managers, C-level managers, procurement officers, and so on — this book will empower you to create powerful cooperative alliances that will help you reach —and surpass — your business goals in today’s dynamic new environment.

Contract, Governance and Transaction Cost Economics

Contract, Governance and Transaction Cost Economics
Author: Oliver E Williamson
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2017-03-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9813202076

This book brings together a collection of seven papers on Transaction Cost Economics by Nobel Laureate Professor Oliver E Williamson. The applications of Transaction Cost Economics are extensive, ranging from the field of industrial organization and applied fields of economics such as labor, public finance, comparative economic systems and economic development, to the business fields of strategy, organizational behavior, marketing, finance, operations management, and accounting. In short, as Williamson states, "any problem that originates as or can be reformulated as a contracting problem can be examined to advantage in transaction cost economizing terms." What is referred to as New Institutional Economics is developed in the West in two mainly complementary ways: Property Rights Theory, and Transaction Cost Economics. Of the two, Property Rights Theory developed more rapidly. Transaction Cost Economics has nonetheless taken shape of late. In China, research on New Institutional Economics began in the 1990s and has grown rapidly since. China has similarly given much more attention to Property Rights Theory. Gengxuan Chen, the editor of this volume, recommends that China will benefit by bringing Transaction Cost Economics to bear. Simultaneously, for scholars who study the market economy, Transaction Cost Economics provides a very attractive way to explain the practice of the Chinese market economy.

Global Production

Global Production
Author: Pol Antràs
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2020-10-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691209030

Global Production is the first book to provide a fully comprehensive overview of the complicated issues facing multinational companies and their global sourcing strategies. Few international trade transactions today are based on the exchange of finished goods; rather, the majority of transactions are dominated by sales of individual components and intermediary services. Many firms organize global production around offshoring parts, components, and services to producers in distant countries, and contracts are drawn up specific to the parties and distinct legal systems involved. Pol Antràs examines the contractual frictions that arise in the international system of production and how these frictions influence the world economy. Antràs discusses the inevitable complications that develop in contract negotiation and execution. He provides a unified framework that sheds light on the factors helping global firms determine production locations and other organizational choices. Antràs also implements a series of systematic empirical tests, based on recent data from the U.S. Customs and Census Offices, which demonstrate the relevance of contractual factors in global production decisions. Using an integrated approach, Global Production is an excellent resource for researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates interested in the inner workings of international economics and trade.