We examine whether performance-sensitive debt (PSD) is used to reduce hold-up problems in long-term lending relationships. We find that the use of PSD is more common in the presence of a long-term lending relationship and if the borrower has fewer financing alternatives available. In syndicated...

This paper confronts the current European gas regulation with the emerging new energy paradigm. It argues that due to a lack of policy credibility, the hold-up problem is a serious threat that will undermine the workings of the future EU gas market. This paper explores how one could from a...

The paper analyzes multilateral relations and distortions of investments in the Eurasian gas network, supplying gas from countries of the Former Soviet Union to Western Europe. We use a two stage model of endogenous coalition formation to study cooperation among gas producers and transiters,...

In the hold-up problem incomplete contracts cause the proceeds of relation specific investments to be allocated by ex-post bargaining. The present paper investigates the efficiency of incomplete contracts if individuals have heterogeneous preferences implying heterogeneous bargaining behavior...

With cumulative innovation and imperfect information about the value of innovations, intellectual property rights can result in hold-up and therefore it may be better not to have them. Extending the basic cumulative innovation model to include `sampling' by second-stage firms, we find that the...

Where product innovation requires several complementary patents, fragmented property rights can limit firms' willingness to invest in R&D. We consider the research intensity in multiple simultaneous R & D contests and how it depends on whether firms already hold relevant patents as well as the...

This paper surveys models of markets in which some consumers are "savvy" while others are not. We discuss when the presence of savvy consumers improves the deals available to non-savvy consumers in the market (the case of search externalities), and when the non-savvy fund generous deals for...

This paper examines the efficiency of expectation damages as a breach remedy in a bilateral trade setting with renegotiation and relationship-specific investment by the buyer and the seller. As demonstrated by Edlin and Reichelstein (1996), no contract that specifies only a fixed quantity and a...

Where product innovation requires several complementary patents, fragmented property rights can be a factor that limits firms’ willingness to invest in the development and commercialization of new products. This paper studies multiple simultaneous R&D contests for complementary patents...

In the hold-up problem incomplete contracts cause the proceeds of relation-specific investments to be allocated by ex-post bargaining. The present paper investigates the efficiency of incomplete contracts if individuals have heterogeneous preferences implying heterogeneous bargaining behavior...