IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/anr/reveco/v14y2022p337-362.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relational Contracts and Development

Author

Listed:
  • Rocco Macchiavello

    (Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Sciences, London, United Kingdom)

Abstract

This article reviews an emerging body of evidence on relational contracts, defined as informal arrangements sustained by the value of future interactions. We focus on developing and international markets, which are often characterized as contexts with weak formal contract enforcement. We introduce relational contracting between firms as a governance form alternative to both firms and markets. We then review evidence on the prevalence of long-term relationships between firms and discuss why this governance form might be particularly common in developing countries. After introducing a simple framework, we discuss the measurement of relational contracting between firms. We review an approach that takes dynamic incentive compatibility constraints to the data to quantify the value of future interactions and illustrate how different types of shocks can be used to uncover the inner functioning of relational contracting. We also review structural models and conclude with policy implications and promising avenues for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Rocco Macchiavello, 2022. "Relational Contracts and Development," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 337-362, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:anr:reveco:v:14:y:2022:p:337-362
    DOI: 10.1146/annurev-economics-051420-110722
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-051420-110722
    Download Restriction: Full text downloads are only available to subscribers. Visit the abstract page for more information.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1146/annurev-economics-051420-110722?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefano Fiorin & Joseph Hall & Martin Kanz, 2023. "How do Borrowers Respond to a Debt Moratorium? Experimental Evidence from Consumer Loans in India," Working Papers 691, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    2. Morjaria, Ameet & Macchiavello, Rocco, 2022. "Acquisitions, Management, and Efficiency in Rwanda's Coffee Industry," CEPR Discussion Papers 17434, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Macchiavello, Rocco & Morjaria, Ameet, 2022. "Empirical approaches to trust and relational contracts," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. Cajal-Grossi, Julia & Del Prete, Davide & Macchiavello, Rocco, 2023. "Supply chain disruptions and sourcing strategies," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    5. Mohamed Abouaziza, 2022. "Farmer constraints and relational contracts: evidence from agricultural value chains in East Africa," Economics PhD Theses 0122, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    governance forms; relational contracts; trust; organizational economics; development economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • L23 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Organization of Production
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:anr:reveco:v:14:y:2022:p:337-362. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: http://www.annualreviews.org (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.annualreviews.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.