This paper examines a class of contractual relationships with specific investment, a non-durable trading opportunity, and renegotiation. Trade actions are modeled as individual and trade-action-based option contracts (“non-forcing contractsâ€) are explored. The paper identifies an...

This paper develops a theoretical framework for studying contract and enforcement in setting of complete, but unverifiable, information. The main point of the paper is that the consideration of renegotiation necessitates formal examination of other technological constraints, especially those...

Motivated by evidence on the importance of incomplete information and networks in international trade, we investigate the supply of "network intermediation." We hypothesize that the agents who become international trade intermediaries first accumulate networks of foreign contacts while working...

This paper develops a theoretical framework for analyzing contracting imperfections in long-term employment relationships. We focus chiefly on limited enforceability and limited worker liquidity. Inefficient severance of employment relationships, payment of efficiency wages, the relative...

This paper examines a contractual settingwith unverifiable investment and a durable trading opportunity, in which trade can take place in any one of an infinite number of periods. The contractual setting features cross-investment, meaning that the seller’s investment affects the...

This paper examines a class of contractual relationships with specific investment, a non-durable trading opportunity, and renegotiation. FurtheringWatson’s (2007) line of analysis, trade actions are modeled as individual and trade-action-based option contracts are explored. Simple tools...

This paper develops a theoretical framework for studying contract and enforcement in settings with nondurable trading opportunities and complete but unverifiable information. The framework explicitly accounts for the parties’ individual trade actions. The sets of implementable...

We explore the notion of "verifiability" by analyzing a simple model of evidence production in contractual relationships with complete information. We characterize implementability in terms of the existence and form of "hard evidence." We provide results on maximal and minimal evidence...

We explore the conceptual basis of "verifiability" by explicitly modeling the process of evidence production in contractual relationships of complete information. Evidence is represented by documents, on the submission of which an enforcement authority conditions transfers between the...

In most of the contract theory literature, contracting costs are assumed either to be high enough to preclude certain forms of contracting, or low enough to permit any contract to be written. Similarly, researchers usually treat renegotiation as either costless or prohibitively costly. This...