This chapter reviews the literature on the theory of relational incentive contracts.  It motivates the discussion by the classic applications of relational contracts to the GM-Fisher Body relationship and the relationships between Japanese automobile manufacturers and their subcontractors.  It...

This paper evaluates alternative strategic models of competition and market structure in online retailing, and makes comparisons with traditional retailing. Online consumers are less concerned than traditional consumers about spatial characteristics and more concerned about hidden quality...

Competition between hopping centres, which may take the form of supermarkets (or hypermarkets), shopping malls or high streets, is emplored in a model in which the consumers' choice of centre is determined by the utility available from visiting different centres, based on the range of products...

This paper estimates a model of retail oligopoly where consumers choose between stores using consumer data which specifies the firm operating the chosen store and not the specific store (as is convenient practice for retail surveys). The location and other characteristics of the stores are...

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This paper evaluates alternative strategic models of competition and market structure in online retailing, and makes comparisons with traditional retailing. Online consumers are less concerned than traditional consumers about spatial characteristics and more concerned about hidden quality...

Interconnections among financial institutions create potential channels for contagionand amplification of shocks to the financial system. Contagion occurs when a shock tothe assets of a single firm causes other firms to default through the network of obligations.We say that contagion is weak if...

In many rural settings, informal mutual support networks have evolved into semiformal insurance groups, such as funeral societies.  Using detailed panel data for six villages in Ethiopia, we can distinguish two types of contracts, in terms of whether payments are only made at the time of death...

This paper extends the relational contract model in Levin (2003) with shocks to theagent’s cost of effort (agent’s type) to shocks to the principal’s valuation of the agent’seffort (principal’s type). When optimal effort is fully pooled across agent types...

This paper explores the implications of specific training for relational contracts.  A standard result for sustaining a relational contract is that the parties must jointly receive a surplus over what they can get by separating.  This has been interpreted as employees with relational contracts...