Search results for "jel:K12"
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Anatomy of Cartel Contracts
2013
We study cartel contracts using data on 18 contract clauses of 109 legal Finnish manufacturing cartels. One third of the clauses relate to raising profits; the others deal with instability through incentive compatibility, cartel organization, or external threats. Cartels use three main approaches to raise profits: Price, market allocation, and specialization. These appear to be substitutes. Choosing one has implications on how cartels deal with instability. Simplifying, we find that large cartels agree on prices, cartels in homogenous goods industries allocate markets, and small cartels avoid competition through specialization.
Expectation Damages and Bilateral Cooperative Investments
2012
We examine the efficiency of the standard breach remedy expectation damages in a setting where the buyer invests cooperatively and the seller invests both cooperatively and selfishly. Contracts may specify a required quality level and an upper bound to the seller's coordination costs. We find that it is optimal to write an augmented Cadillac contract in which quality is stipulated such that it cannot be met with positive probability together with a very low price. Thus, the seller becomes a residual claimant and the coordination-cost threshold can be used to balance the incentives of the buyer.