The market for copyrights is characterised by a highly skewed distribution of profits: very few movies, books and songs generate huge profits, whereas the great bulk barely manages to recover production cost. At the moment when the owner of intellectual property grants a licence ("ex ante"),...

We develop a theoretical model to identify and compare partial and equilibrium effects of uncertainty and the magnitude of fines on punishment and deterrence. Partial effects are effects on potential violators' and punishers' decisions when the other side's behavior is exogenously given....

Acquirers and targets define and allocate interim risk through Material-Adverse-Event (MAE) exclusions in merger agreements. I examine why MAE-exclusions exist based on the risk they address and assess whether such risk allocation affects the gains in the acquisition. Targets and acquirers seem...

Contract today increasingly links entrepreneurial innovations to the efforts and finance necessary to transform ideas into value. In this Chapter, we describe the match between a form of contract that "braids" formal and informal contractual elements in novel ways and the process by which...

Theories of choice, and their legal consequences, dramatically differ based on whether they are premised on rational or boundedly rational actors. This chapter describes the interactions between, and the regulatory implications of, three types of uncertainties that the selection of an adequate...

Model contracts play a principal role in reducing transaction costs. They offer parties a series of rules, which allocates risk so that delays, disagreements, over-expenditures, and under-capitalizations can be managed (or avoided altogether). The best model contracts are highly responsive,...

This study identifies a severe gap between the financial backlash borrowers believe awaits them after strategic mortgage default and the reality that lenders rarely pursue deficiency judgments. This, coupled with the social norm finding that borrowers widely view strategic default as immoral,...

There is no doubt that Cuba is working hard to attract foreign investors. In 2014 its foreign investing laws were completely reformed to accommodate this, however, it may be too early to determine whether these reforms actually reduce investor risk. For foreign investors ready to make the move...

Contracts serve an important function: allocation of risks. In achieving this function, contractual parties routinely include a force majeure clause in their contracts to be excused from performance in the face of a supervening event. But what events qualify to excuse performance and how have...

In merger agreements, the seller makes contractual representations and warranties (“reps”) about the state of the target, e.g., attesting to the accuracy of the target’s financial statements. We obtain a proprietary sample of claims for breaches of the reps in acquisition agreements...