It has been claimed that the market fosters selfishness and thereby undermines the moral basis of society. This thesis has been developed with an emphasis on market exchange. Everyday life is, however, predominantly shaped by interactions in the workplace rather than by shopping behaviour. This...

This paper considers the role of opportunism in three contractual theories of the firm: rent-seeking theory, property rights theory, and agency theory. In each case I examine whether it is possible to have a functioning contractual theory of the firm without recourse to opportunism. Without...

The decision to cooperate within R&D joint ventures is often based on expert advice. Such advice typically originates in a due-diligence process, which assesses the R&D joint venture's profitability, for example, by appraising the achievability of synergies. We show that if the experts who...

In our model, an entrant has two effective strategies for profit maximization: collaboration with incumbents and location choice. We analyze the effect of allowing an entrant the opportunity to collaborate with incumbents on its location choice. First, we show that when collaboration requires...

Previous work on the regulation of termination clauses in franchise contracts has ignored the ability of parties to contract around state law. Using data on two national fast-food restaurants, we find that Washington, D.C.'s termination restriction which did not restrict choice-of-law provisions...

In markets for credence goods, such as doctor visits, customers sample a firm for a few periods, before deciding whether to retain or fire that firm. In our model, customers have endogenously determined patience in tolerating bad outcomes from credence-good providers. The more competitive the...

We investigate whether transactions where the buyer (or seller) always moves first and the seller (or buyer) always moves second in the exchange give higher payoffs than transactions in which it is randomly determined who moves first. We examine the effect of two treatment variables: partners...

The association between the expansion of trade and conversion to Islam has been noted all over the world. In this paper the author integrates the data from Africa with a transaction cost argument that helps explain the economic logic behind this oft-noted association. The author also considers...

This paper provides new evidence on the contractual governance of technology licensing agreements. Using an international sample of licensing contracts, we explore how contracts are designed to deal with specific contractual risks. In particular, we comparatively assess the influences of...

This paper is a first step towards a positive theory of nonmajoritarian institutions. Delegation of powers to such institutions is best understood as a means of reducing certain political transaction costs. The precise nature of the relation between political sovereign and independent delegate...