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Renegotiation of Sales Contracts

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  • Steven A. Matthews

Abstract

Contracts adopted with later renegotiation in mind may take simple forms. In a principal-agent model, if renegotiation may occur after the agent chooses efforet, the principal protects against unfavorable renegotiation by "selling the project" to the agent via a sales contract. If only singleton (single-scheme) contracts are feasible, the equilibrium initial contract must be a sales contract if the principal's renegotiation position will be inherently inferior in the sense that (a) the agent will have the bargianing power; (b) the principal will not observe the agent's effort, and (c) the agent has the talent, i.e. a rich set of feasible efforts, to exploint contractual nuances. Renegotiation necessarily occurs, and it yields (second-best) efficient allocations. Even when meny (multiple-scheme) contracts are available, if the selection of a scheme from a menu entails any cost, then the final contract is a singleton and equilibrium renegotiation occurs. If there is any complexity cost to specifying a menuy, the initional contract must also be a singleton; it is necessarily a sales contract if the agent has talent. A weak forward induction refinement criterion is used to obtain these results.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven A. Matthews, 1993. "Renegotiation of Sales Contracts," Discussion Papers 1051, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:nwu:cmsems:1051
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    Cited by:

    1. Matthews, Steven A., 2001. "Renegotiating Moral Hazard Contracts under Limited Liability and Monotonicity," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 1-29, March.
    2. Mathias Dewatripont & Patrick Legros & Steven A. Matthews, 2003. "Moral Hazard and Capital Structure Dynamics," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 890-930, June.
    3. Osano, Hiroshi & Kobayashi, Mami, 2005. "Double moral hazard and renegotiation," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 345-364, December.
    4. Andreas Blume, 1998. "Contract Renegotiation with Time‐Varying Valuations," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), pages 397-433, September.
    5. Ching-mann Huang & Len-kuo Hu & Hsin-Hong Kang, 2005. "Compensation Design and Career Concerns of Fund Manager," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 379-397, June.
    6. De Fraja, Gianni, 1999. "After You Sir. Hold-Up, Direct Externalities, and Sequential Investment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 22-39, January.
    7. Eva I. Hoppe & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2021. "How (Not) to Foster Innovations in Public Infrastructure Projects," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(1), pages 238-266, January.
    8. R. Amit & Parthasarathy Ramachandran, 2010. "A Fair Contract for Managing Water Scarcity," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 24(6), pages 1195-1209, April.
    9. Susanne Ohlendorf & Patrick W. Schmitz, 2012. "Repeated Moral Hazard And Contracts With Memory: The Case Of Risk‐Neutrality," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(2), pages 433-452, May.
    10. Okat, Deniz & Nash, John G.F., 2024. "Delegating trial and error," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    11. Gul, Faruk, 2001. "Unobservable Investment and the Hold-Up Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(2), pages 343-376, March.
    12. Francesco Squintani, 1999. "Moral Hazard," Discussion Papers 1269, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    13. Patrick W. Schmitz, 2005. "Should Contractual Clauses that Forbid Renegotiation Always be Enforced?," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(2), pages 315-329, October.
    14. Philippe Aghion & Patrick Bolton & Jean Tirole, 2004. "Exit Options in Corporate Finance: Liquidity versus Incentives," Review of Finance, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 327-353.
    15. Anderlini, Luca & Felli, Leonardo, 1998. "Describability and agency problems," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 35-59, January.
    16. Erol Akçay & Adam Meirowitz & Kristopher W. Ramsay, 2018. "Two-sided unobservable investment, bargaining, and efficiency," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 22(3), pages 123-147, December.
    17. Schmitz, Patrick W. & Ohlendorf, Susanne, 2008. "Repeated Moral Hazard, Limited Liability, and Renegotiation," CEPR Discussion Papers 6725, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Bijapur, Mohan, 2011. "Moral hazard and renegotiation of multi-signal contracts," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 56619, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Steven Matthews, 2002. "Moral Hazard and Capital Structure Dynamics (joint with Mathias Dewatripont and Patrick Legros) Note the special time," Theory workshop papers 357966000000000095, UCLA Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    contracts; principal-agent; moral hazard; renegotiation; incentives;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

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