Existing theories of a firm’s optimal capital structure seem to fail in explaining why many healthy and profitable firms rely heavily on equity financing, even though benefits associated with debt (like tax shields) appear to be high and the bankruptcy risk low. This holds in particular for...

We propose a model of strikes in a relational (or self-enforcing) contract framework. The employer has private information about firm profitability, proposes a wage and a bonus, and can outsource part of the production, in each period. The union can either go on strike or reduce the worker's...

This paper uses a vertical relational contract between two firms to explore the implications of trade credit when the ability to repay is not observed by the supplier.  Trade credit limits the supplier's possibilities to punish the cashless downstream firms and termination may be used in...

We study the tension between competitive screening and contract enforcement where a principal trades repeatedly with one among several agents, moral hazard and adverse selection coexist, and non-contractible dimensions are governed by relational contracting. We simultaneously characterize...

We consider a model where multiple principals repeatedly offer short-term contracts to three or more agents with private information. Under low discounting there exists a simple class of mechanisms that sustains all equilibrium allocations that could be generated by arbitrarily complex...

Work on relational employment agreements often predicts low payments or termination for poor performance. The possibility of saving can, however, limit the effectiveness of monetary incentives in motivating an employee with diminishing marginal utility for consumption. We study the role of...

This paper was written as an editorial preface to a "Symposium on Relational Contracts", that was jointly edited by the three authors, and that will appear in the Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE). The Symposium contains eleven contributions to the economics of relational...

Standard models of promotion tournaments assume that firms can commit to arbitrary tournament prizes. In this paper, a firm's ability to adjust tournament prizes is constrained by the outside labor market, through the wages other firms are willing to offer to the promoted and unpromoted workers....

When procurement contracts are awarded through competitive tendering participating firms commit ex ante to fulfil a set of contractual duties. However, selected contractors may find profitable to renege ex post on their promises by opportunistically delivering lower quality standards. In order...

This paper considers a long-term relationship between two agents who undertake costly actions or investments which produce a joint benefit. Agents have an opportunity to expropriate some of the joint benefit for their own use. The question asked is how to structure the investments and division...