In line with the widely applied principle of just deserts, we assume that the severity of the penalty on a contract offender increases in the harm on the other. When this principle holds, the influence of the efficiency of the agreement on the incentives to abide by it crucially depends on...

Despite the common view that there is inherently a relationship of confliction, it is now impossible to imagine the financing of family-owned enterprises in Germany without the alternative method of Private Equity financing. Based on a survey on Private Equity in family owned companies...

One of the most vexing public policy issues is the extent to which governments should intervene into private contractual relationships. The purpose of this paper is to explore both theoretically and empirically the extent to which such interventions may enhance efficiency. In the case of...

This paper discusses the literature on the enforcement of incomplete contracts. It compares legal enforcement to enforcement via relationships and reputations. A number of mechanisms, such as the repeat purchase mechanism (Klein and Leffler (1981)) and efficiency wages (Shapiro and Stiglitz...

The legal foundation of the monetary system is the law of legal tender. The “legal tender” concept is used in models to describe almost anything except for what it really means in actual laws. Such errors prevent an accurate evaluation of the importance of this legal status. This note...

When investments are nonverifiable, 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 lower...

The report deals with the current legal questions relating to the trading, working out and outsourcing of non-performing loans. Within this framework the basic legal provisions and the problems arising therefrom, for example, in the area of data protection or banking secrecy, are explained and...

This study models producer protection legislation that would grant growers the right to claim damages (PPLD) if their contracts are prematurely terminated. In the absence of contracting frictions that prevent contractors from redesigning contracts to accommodate exogenous policy changes, PPLD...

A party dissatisfied with the contractual performance of a counterparty is typically able to pursue a variety of legal recourses. Within this apparent variety lurk two fundamental alternatives. The aggrieved party may (i) 'affirm' the contract and seek money damages or specific performance; or...

We consider default rules for instances in which parties to a contract did not allocate the risk of a certain contingency, and both sides could have helped avoid the occurrence of breach of the contract or lessen the damages from it occurring. We compare alternative regimes with a fault-based...