The authors show in this paper that renegotiable short-term contracts can be as efficient as long-term renegotiation-proof contracts even in situations of asymmetric information. They do so by extending their earlier results on symmetric information models. Some limited commitment thus seems to be a necessary and sufficient condition to achieve long-run efficiency. The authors moreover show that, due to ratchet effects and time inconsistencies in the structure of informational rents, spot contracts are much less efficient under asymmetric information, even is there is no need for intertemporal smoothing. Copyright 1996 by The Econometric Society.
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Article provided by Econometric Society in its journal Econometrica.
Volume (Year): 64 (1996) Issue (Month): 6 (November) Pages: 1395-1414 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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Helmut Bester & Roland Strausz, 2003.
"Contracting with Imperfect Commitment and Noisy Communication,"
Discussion Papers
2, SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
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