IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/usi/wpaper/593.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal Contract Design with Unilateral Market Option

Author

Listed:
  • Antonio Nicita
  • Simone Sepe

Abstract

Contrary to previous literature, we show that the assignment of authority decision matters in optimal contract design with bilateral specific self-investments. This is the case when we enlarge the set of the states of nature, to explicitly consider the event that a party's market option turns out to be binding ex-post. We show that, under this setting, simple contracts protected by specific performance remedies may generate hold-up and thus parties' incentives to under-invest. However, investment efficiency is enhanced when authority is assigned to the party with ex-post binding market option. Our results suggest a neglected rationale for vertical integration as a remedy against hold-up

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Nicita & Simone Sepe, 2010. "Optimal Contract Design with Unilateral Market Option," Department of Economics University of Siena 593, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    • Handle: RePEc:usi:wpaper:593
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.deps.unisi.it/quaderni/593.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chatterjee Kalyan & Chiu Y. Stephen, 2007. "When Does Competition Lead to Efficient Investments?," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-39, July.
    2. Klein, Benjamin, 1996. "Why Hold-Ups Occur: The Self-Enforcing Range of Contractual Relationships," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 34(3), pages 444-463, July.
    3. De Meza, D. & Lockwood, Ben, 1997. "Does Asset Ownership Always Motivate Managers? The Property Rights Theory of the Firm with Alternating - Offers Bargaining," Discussion Papers 9701, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    4. Casadesus-Masanell, Ramon & Spulber, Daniel F, 2000. "The Fable of Fisher Body," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(1), pages 67-104, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antonio Nicita & Ugo Pagano, 2005. "Incomplete Contracts and Institutions," Chapters, in: Jürgen G. Backhaus (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Law and Economics, Second Edition, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Paul Walker, 2010. "The (Non)Theory Of The Knowledge Firm," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 57(1), pages 1-32, February.
    3. Gibbons, Robert, 2005. "Four forma(lizable) theories of the firm?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 200-245, October.
    4. Timothy Bresnahan & Jonathan Levin, 2012. "Vertical Integration and Market Structure [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    5. Antonio Nicita & Simone Sepe, 2012. "Incomplete contracts and competition: another look at fisher body/general motors?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 495-514, December.
    6. Andreas Roider, 2006. "Fisher Body revisited: Supply contracts and vertical integration," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 181-196, September.
    7. Schmid, Andreas, 2007. "Incentive Compatibility and Efficiency in the contractual Insurer-Provider Relationship: Economic Theory and practical Implications: The Case of North Carolina," MPRA Paper 23311, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2008.
    8. Gil, Ricard & Marion, Justin, 2009. "The Role of Repeated Interactions, Self-Enforcing Agreements and Relational [Sub]Contracting: Evidence from California Highway Procurement Auctions," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt6ds5d1pp, University of California Transportation Center.
    9. Sharon Novak & Scott Stern, 2009. "Complementarity Among Vertical Integration Decisions: Evidence from Automobile Product Development," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(2), pages 311-332, February.
    10. Sande, Jon Bingen & Haugland, Sven A., 2015. "Strategic performance effects of misaligned formal contracting: The mediating role of relational contracting," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 187-194.
    11. Leonardo Felli & Kevin Roberts, 2016. "Does Competition Solve the Hold-up Problem?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(329), pages 172-200, January.
    12. Sebastian Kunte & Meike Wollni & Claudia Keser, 2017. "Making it personal: breach and private ordering in a contract farming experiment," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 44(1), pages 121-148.
    13. Temin, Peter & Maxwell, James, 2003. "Corporate contracting for health care," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 403-420, November.
    14. White, George O. & Rajwani, Tazeeb & Krammer, Sorin M.S., 2022. "Legal distance and entrepreneurial orientation of foreign subsidiaries: Evidence from Southeast Asia," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 57(6).
    15. Shanoyan, Aleksan & Brent Ross, R. & Gow, Hamish R. & Christopher Peterson, H., 2014. "Long-term sustainability of third-party facilitated market linkages: Evidence from the USDA marketing assistance program in the Armenian dairy industry," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 157-164.
    16. Beckmann, Volker & Boger, Silke, 2004. "Courts and contract enforcement in transition agriculture: theory and evidence from Poland," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 31(2-3), pages 251-263, December.
    17. Vi Dung Ngo & Frank Janssen & Marine Falize, 2016. "An incentive-based model of international entrepreneurship in emerging and transition economies," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 52-74, March.
    18. Cocks, Jack & Gow, Hamish R. & Dunn, Daniel J., 2003. "Meeting Private Grades And Standards In Transition Agriculture: Experiences From The Armenian Dairy Industry," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22144, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    19. Pedro Mendi & Róbert F. Veszteg, 2009. "Sustainability of collusion: evidence from the late 19th century basque iron and steel industry," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 33(3), pages 385-405, September.
    20. Per L. Bylund, 2015. "Signifying Williamson's Contribution to the Transaction Cost Approach: An Agent-Based Simulation of Coasean Transaction Costs and Specialization," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 148-174, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • K12 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Contract Law
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • C70 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:usi:wpaper:593. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Fabrizio Becatti (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/desieit.html .

    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.