Most contracts that individuals enter into are not written from scratch; rather, they depend upon forms and terms that have been successful in the past. In this paper, we study the structure of form construction contracts published by the American Institute of Architects (AIA). We show that...

We introduce a general Principal-Agent model with subjective evaluation and malfeasance characterized by two-sided asymmetric information on performance that allows for an arbitrary information structure. Two generic contract forms are studied. An authority contract has the Principal reveal his...

Around 1875 the U.S. had none of the world’s leading research universities; today, it accounts for the majority of the top-ranked. Many observers cite events surrounding World War II as the source of this reversal. We present evidence that U.S. research universities had surpassed most...