In a Case Law regime Courts have more flexibility than in a Statute Law regime. Since Statutes are inevitably incomplete, this confers an advantage to the Statute Law regime over the Case Law one. However, all Courts rule ex-post, after most economic decisions are already taken. Therefore, the...

This paper extends the classic two-armed bandit problem to a many-agent setting in which N players each face the same experimentation problem. The difference with the single-agent problem is that agents can now learn from the experiments of others. Thus, experiementation produces a public good...

This paper suggests a reason, other than asymmetric formation, why agency contracts are not explicitly contingent on the contracting parties' performances or actions. This reason is the formal nature of contracts: the form, usually written, that contracts are required to take to be enforceable...

We identify and investigate the basic ?hold-up? problem which arises whenever each party to a contingent contract has to pay some ex-ante cost for the contract to become feasible. We then proceed to show that, under plausible circumstances, a ?contractual solution? to this hold-up problem is not...

This paper explores the link between boundedly rational behaviour and incomplete contracts. The bounded rationality of the agents in our world is embodied in a constraint that the contracts they write must be algorithmic in nature. We start with a definition of contract incompleteness that seems...

This paper extends the classic two-armed bandit problem to a many-agent setting in which N players each face the same experimentation problem. The difference with the single-agent problem is that agents can now learn from the experiments of others. Thus, experiementation produces a public good...

This paper explores the extent to which the presence of ex-ante transaction costs may lead to failures of the Coase Theorem. In particular we identify and investigate the basic 'hold-up problem' which arises whenever the parties to a Coasian negotiation have to pay some ex-ante costs for the...

We identify the inefficiencies that arise when negotiation between two parties takes place in the presence of transaction costs. First, for some values of these costs it is efficient to reach an agreement but the unique equilibrium outcome is one in which agreement is never reached. Secondly,...

We study a contracting model with unforeseen contingencies in which the court is an active player. Ex-ante, the contracting parties cannot include the risky unforeseen contingencies in the contract they draw up. Ex-post the court observes whether an unforeseen contingency occurred, and decides...

We identify and investigate the basic 'hold-up problem' which arises whenever each party to a contract has to pay some ex-ante cost for the contract to become feasible. We then proceed to show that, under plausible circumstances, a 'contractual solution' to this hold-up problem is not available....