This paper characterizes the choice rules that can be implemented when agents are unable to commit themselves not to renegotiate the mechanism. Copyright 1999 by The Review of Economic Studies Limited.

A risk-averse buyer and seller contract over the trade of an item. At the time of trading, they each privately know their value s and cost r respectively, but these are not known when the contract is drawn up. The contract specifies a Bayesian revelation mechanism for implementing a trading rule...

New ways of handling incentive constraints between nonadjacent types of buyer are used to solve a monopoly screening problem. The monopoly wishes to price discriminate by designing a product line of goods distinguished by different quality, warranty, and price attributes. The multidimensionality...

We argue that a contract provides a reference point for a trading relationship: more precisely, for parties' feelings of entitlement. A party's ex post performance depends on whether he gets what he is entitled to relative to outcomes permitted by the contract. A party who is shortchanged shades...

We propose a new bankruptcy procedure. Initially, a firm's debts are cancelled, and cash and non-cash bids are solicited for the 'new" (all-equity) firm. Former claimants are given shares, or options to buy shares, in the new firm on the basis of absolute priority. Options are exercised once the...

We view a contract as a list of outcomes. Ex ante, the parties commit not to consider outcomes not on the list, i.e., these are ruled out'. Ex post, they freely bargain over outcomes on the list, i.e., the contract specifies no mechanism to structure their choice; in this sense outcomes on the...