Lecture on the first SFB/TR 15 meeting, Gummersbach, July, 18 - 20, 2004: This paper revisits the economic analysis of contract law for a setting of cooperative investments. While Che and Chung (1999) have shown that expectation damages perform rather poorly, the present paper argues that this...

If a seller delivers a good non-conforming to contract, European and US warranty law allows consumers to choose between some money transfer and termination. Termination rights are, however, widely criticized, mainly for fear that the buyer may use non-conformity as a pretext for getting rid of a...

In economic approaches it is often argued that reputation considerations influence the behavior of individuals or firms and that reputation influences the outcome of markets. Empirical evidence is rare though. In this contribution we argue that a positive reputation of sellers should have an...

A setting of reliance investments is explored where one of the parties to a contract obtains private information concerning his utility or cost function that remains hidden to the other party and to courts. As a consequence, it will be a difficult task to award expectation damages corrrectly to...

This paper investigates a procurement relationship between a welfare-oriented government and a private supplier. The agents face several versions of the trading good which differ in quality and production costs, and the differences between those items are undescribable ex ante. In presence of...

We investigate a team production problem where two parties sequentially invest to generate a joint surplus. In this framework, it is possible to implement the first best even if the investment return is highly uncertain. The optimal contract entails a basic dichotomy: it is a simple option...

We analyze the impact of three different transfer fee systems on payoffs, contract lengths, training and effort incentives in European football. The different regimes, being used until 1995 ("Pre-Bosman" or P), currently in use ("Bosman" or B), and recently approved ("Monti" or M) differ with...

In recent years, the call for transparency in pharmaceutical pricing has gained momentum among policymakers and stakeholders. Following a resolution of the 72nd World Health Assembly and the establishment of the Oslo Medicines Initiative, there has been a concerted push for greater transparency...

Dieser Forschungsbericht untersucht die Auswirkungen der im Sommer 2015 eingeführten Befreiungsvorschriften des Kleinanlegerschutzgesetzes. Durch eine stärkere Regulierung soll das Kleinanlegerschutzgesetz für mehr Transparenz für Anlegerinnen und Anleger auf dem grauen Kapitalmarkt sorgen....

We investigate how payoff-irrelevant terms can negatively impact relational contracts. In a lab experiment we compare two economically equivalent contracts - a fixed-term renewable and an open-ended at-will contract. Each contract provides partners with full flexibility regarding the length and...