We present a Theory of Contracts under costly enforcement in the context of a dynamic relationship between an uninformed buyer and a seller who is privately informed on his persistent cost at the outset. Public enforcement relies on remedies for breach. Private enforcement comes from severing...

We build on the existing literature in public-private partnerships (PPP) to analyze the main incentive issues in PPPs and the shape of optimal contracts in those contexts. We present a basic model of procurement in a multitask environment in which a risk-averse firm chooses noncontractible...

This paper explores the private and social benefits from barter exchange in a monetized economy. We first prove a no-trade theorem regarding the ability of firms with double-coincidences-of-wants to negotiate improvements in trade among themselves relative to the market outcomes. We then...