This chapter surveys major issues arising in the economic analysis of contract law. It begins with an introductory discussion of scope and methodology, and then addresses four main topics that correspond to the major doctrinal divisions of the law of contracts. These divisions include freedom of...

This paper develops a positive model of informal contracting in which rewards and punishments are not determined by an ex ante optimal plan but instead express the ex post moral sentiments of the arbitrating party. We consider a subjective performance evaluation problem in which a principal can...

The literature on public procurement pays great attention to the rules underlying tendering procedures as well as on the specification of the type of contract to be awarded. Less attention has been paid to the incompleteness of the contract; this issue is relevant in the public work sector...

Consider a seller who can make an observable but non-contractible investment to improve an intermediate good that is specialized to a particular buyerʼs needs. The buyer then makes a take-it-or-leave-it offer to the seller. The seller has private information about the fraction of the ex post...

I show that cutting the flow of information between a principal and an agent can increase the power of the incentives of the agent to reveal private information. (JEL: D23, D82, D86, L20) (c) 2010 by the European Economic Association.

The 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics has been awarded to Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin, and Roger Myerson, for their contributions to mechanism design theory. The article discusses the importance of mechanism design theory for modern economics, focusing on some of its implications for economic policy...

Transaction costs are an obstacle to the efficient operation of selective contracting. Health care delivery systems (§140 a-d SGB V) and selective contracting between networks of service providers and purchasers are advocated as an effective method to improve the performance of the German...