Legal Environment and Contractual Choice

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ho Cheung Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Optimal Contract ◽  
Legal Environment ◽  
Gains From Trade ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Contractual Choice

Abstract This paper considers contractual choice under imperfect legal systems, in particular, contracts with different timing of payment. Ex-ante payment contracts are risky for the buyer, because the seller may shirk. Ex-post payment contracts are risky for the seller, as the buyer may default. Optimal contract is solved for any given legal environment. Exchanges with lower gains from trade tend to adopt ex-post payment contracts. The seller is a better proposer than the buyer in terms of the efficiency of the proposed contract. Surprisingly, offering ex-ante payment contracts is not strictly better for the seller under any legal environment. Moreover, mixed payment contracts are also analyzed and shown to never be optimal.

scholarly journals The Efficiency of Real-World Bargaining: Evidence from Wholesale Used-Auto Auctions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley J Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Real World ◽  
Bilateral Trade ◽  
Efficient Frontier ◽  
Gains From Trade ◽  
Efficiency Loss ◽  
Car Industry ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Used Car

Abstract This study empirically quantifies the efficiency of a real-world bargaining game with two-sided incomplete information. Myerson and Satterthwaite (1983) and Williams (1987) derived the theoretical ex-ante efficient frontier for bilateral trade under two-sided uncertainty and demonstrated that it falls short of ex-post efficiency, but little is known about how well bargaining performs in practice. Using about 265,000 sequences of a game of alternating-offer bargaining following an ascending auction in the wholesale used-car industry, this study estimates (or bounds) distributions of buyer and seller values and evaluates where realized bargaining outcomes lie relative to efficient outcomes. Results demonstrate that the ex-ante and ex-post efficient outcomes are close to one another, but that the real bargaining falls short of both, suggesting that the bargaining is indeed inefficient but that this inefficiency is not solely due to the information constraints highlighted in Myerson and Satterthwaite (1983). Quantitatively, findings indicate that over one-half of failed negotiations are cases where gains from trade exist, leading an efficiency loss of 12–23% of the available gains from trade.

The revelation principle and mechanism design

2020 ◽  
pp. 661-719
Author(s):  
David M. Kreps
Keyword(s):  
Mechanism Design ◽  
Adverse Selection ◽  
Optimal Contract ◽  
Gains From Trade ◽  
Revelation Principle ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
The Government ◽  
Role Of The Government

This chapter evaluates a more general attack on optimal contract and mechanism design stressing cases of adverse selection, which makes use of the revelation principle. One should be clear about the uses to which the revelation principle is put. It can be thought of as a statement about how actually to implement contracts. But it may be better to use it with greater circumspection as a tool of analysis for finding the limits of what outcomes can be implemented, without reference to how best to implement a particular outcome. In some contexts of direct revelation, there will be situations ex post where the party in the role of the government knows that it can obtain further gains from trade from one or more of the parties who participated. Meanwhile, in many applications of the revelation principle, the party in the role of mechanism designer must be able to commit credibly to no subsequent (re)negotiation once it learns the types of the parties with which it is dealing.

scholarly journals The Optimal Multistage Effort and Contract of VC’s Joint Investment

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Meng Wu
Keyword(s):  
Capital Investment ◽  
Stackelberg Game ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Game Model ◽  
Venture Capitalists ◽  
Optimal Contract ◽  
Venture Capital Investment ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Ante

If the venture project has a great demand of investment, venture entrepreneurs will seek multiple venture capitalists to ensure necessary funding. This paper discusses the decision-making process in the case that multiple venture capitalists invest in a single project. From the beginning of the project till the withdrawal of the investment, the efforts of both parties are long term and dynamic. We consider the Stackelberg game model for venture capital investment in multiple periods. Given the optimal efforts by the entrepreneurs, our results clearly show that as time goes, in every single period entrepreneurs will expect their share of revenue paid to shrink. In other words, they expect a higher ex ante payment and a lower ex post payment. But, in contrast, venture capitalists are expecting exactly the opposite. With a further analysis, we also design an optimal contract in multiple periods. Last but not the least, several issues to be further investigated are proposed as well.

scholarly journals Contractual Incompleteness for External Risks

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susheng Wang
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Contracts ◽  
Optimal Contract ◽  
Incomplete Contract ◽  
Employment Contract ◽  
Control Option ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Contractual Incompleteness ◽  
Incentive Problems

In a model with internal and external risks together with incentive problems, this paper investigates the role of a risky environment on contractual incompleteness. We consider a typical employment contract with an extra control option. This option is contractable ex ante, exercisable ex post, and good for incentives. But, the employer may choose not to have it in a contract. We identify some interesting circumstances under which the option is not in the optimal contract. Our main findings are that (1) external risks determine contractual incompleteness, and (2) a complete contract can better handle incentives, while an incomplete contract can better handle external risks. Hence, our analysis of incomplete contracts is somewhat consistent with Williamson's (1985) idea of low-powered incentives inside the firm and high-powered incentives outside the firm.

scholarly journals Optimal Contract under Moral Hazard with Soft Information

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 55-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume Roger
Keyword(s):  
Moral Hazard ◽  
Adverse Selection ◽  
Soft Information ◽  
Optimal Contract ◽  
Strategic Complements ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Ante

I study a model of moral hazard with soft information: the agent alone observes the stochastic outcome of her action; hence the principal faces a problem of ex post adverse selection. With limited instruments the principal cannot solve these two problems independently; the ex post incentive for misreporting interacts with the ex ante incentives for effort. This affects the shape and properties of the optimal contract, which fails to elicit truthful revelation in all states. In this setup audit and transfer become strategic complements; this is rooted in the nonseparability of the problem. (JEL D82, D86)

scholarly journals Willpower and compromise effect

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 279-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yusufcan Masatlioglu ◽  
Daisuke Nakajima ◽  
Emre Ozdenoren
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Utility Maximization ◽  
Compromise Effect ◽  
Optimal Contract ◽  
Behavioral Traits ◽  
Cognitive Resource ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Profit Maximizing

This paper provides a behavioral foundation for modeling willpower as a limited cognitive resource that bridges the standard utility maximization and Strotz models. Using the agent's ex ante preferences and ex post choices, we derive a representation that captures key behavioral traits of willpower‐constrained decision making. We use the model to study the pricing problem of a profit‐maximizing monopolist who faces consumers with limited willpower. We show that the optimal contract often consists of three alternatives and that the consumer's choices reflect a form of the “compromise effect,” which is induced endogenously.

Ex-Ante and Ex-Post Performance of Optimal REIT Portfolios

CFA Digest ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 8-9
Author(s):  
Ann C. Logue
Keyword(s):  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Ante

Erreurs de prévision ex ante et ex post

1993 ◽  
Vol 108 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-138
Author(s):  
Pierre Malgrange ◽  
Silvia Mira d'Ercole
Keyword(s):  
Ex Post ◽  
Ex Ante
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