This article compares alternative liability rules for allocating losses from defective products when consumers underestimate these losses and producers may have some market power. If producers do not have any market power, the rule of strict liability is first-best. If market power is...

This article considers a situation where the buyer or the seller of a good must engage in expenditures on specific capital before the exchange either to prepare to use the product or to prepare to sell it. It is assumed that postbreach bargaining is possible and carried out in a cooperative...

Economic theorists have devoted considerable attention to analyzing models of closely related incentive contracting problems that arise in the study of public procurement, private procurement, regulation, the theory of the firm, the theory of organizations, and managerial compensation. The...

This paper compares alternative liability rules for allocating losses from defective products when consumers under- estimate these losses and producers may have some market power. If producers do not have any market power, the rule of strict liability .leads to both the first-best accident...

Economic theorists have devoted considerable attention to analyzing models of closely related incentive contracting problems that arise in the study of public procurement, private procurement, regulation, the theory of the firm, the theory of organizations, and managerial compensation. The...

This article considers the role that reputation plays in assuring product quality in markets where consumers can only imperfectly judge product quality even after consumption. Three conclusions are derived. First, high quality firms have more customers because they have fewer dissatisfied...