We show that parties in bilateral trade can rely on the default common law breach remedy of ‘expectation damages’ to induce simultaneously ?rst-best relationship-speci?c investments of both the sel?sh and the cooperative kind. This can be achieved by writing a contract that speci?es...

Several empirical findings have challenged the traditional view on the trade-off between risk and incentives. By combining risk aversion and limited liability in a standard principal-agent model the empirical puzzle on the positive relationship between risk and incentives can be explained....

If a seller delivers a good non-conforming to contract, European and US warranty law allows consumers to choose between some money transfer and termination. Termination rights are, however, widely criticized, mainly for fear that the buyer may use non-conformity as a pretext for getting rid of a...

We analyze the optimal design of rank-order tournaments with heterogeneous workers. Iftournament prizes do not differ between the workers(uniform prizes), as in the previous tournament literature, the outcome will be ineffcient. In the case of limited liability, the employer may benefit from...

Several empirical studies have challenged tournament theory by pointing out that (1) there is considerable pay variation within hierarchy levels, (2) promotion premiums only in part explain hierarchical wage differences and (3) external recruitment is observable on nearly any hierarchy level. We...

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...

Several empirical findings have challenged the traditional trade-off between risk and incentives. By combining risk aversion and limited liability in a standard principal-agent model the empirical puzzle on the positive relationship between risk and incentives can be explained.

When investments are non-verifiable, inducing cooperative investments with simple contracts may not be as difficult as previously thought. Indeed, modeling 'expectation damages' close to legal practice, we show that the default remedy of contract law induces the first best. Yet, in order to...

Lecture on the first SFB/TR 15 meeting, Gummersbach, July, 18 - 20, 2004The existing literature on the comparison of tournaments and piece rates as alternative incentive schemes has focused on the case of unlimited liability. However, in practice real workers’ wealth is typically...

It is well-known that, in static models, minimum wages generate positive worker rents and, consequently, inefficiently low e?ort. We show that this result does not necessarily extend to a dynamic context. The reason is that, in repeated employment relationships, ?rms may exploit workers’...