Can Blockchain Solve the Hold-up Problem in Contracts?

Can Blockchain Solve the Hold-up Problem in Contracts? PDF Author: Richard Holden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 100902017X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 94

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Book Description
A vexing problem in contract law is modification. Two parties sign a contract but before they fully perform, they modify the contract. Should courts enforce the modified agreement? A private remedy is for the parties to write a contract that is robust to hold-up or that makes the facts relevant to modification verifiable. Provisions accomplishing these ends are renegotiation-design and revelation mechanisms. But implementing them requires commitment power. Conventional contract technologies to ensure commitment – liquidated damages – are disfavored by courts and themselves subject to renegotiation. Smart contracts written on blockchain ledgers offer a solution. We explain the basic economics and legal relevance of these technologies, and we argue that they can implement liquidated damages without courts. We address the hurdles courts may impose to use of smart contracts on blockchain and show that sophisticated parties' ex ante commitment to them may lead courts to allow their use as pre-commitment devices.

Can Blockchain Solve the Hold-up Problem in Contracts?

Can Blockchain Solve the Hold-up Problem in Contracts? PDF Author: Richard Holden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 100902017X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 94

Get Book Here

Book Description
A vexing problem in contract law is modification. Two parties sign a contract but before they fully perform, they modify the contract. Should courts enforce the modified agreement? A private remedy is for the parties to write a contract that is robust to hold-up or that makes the facts relevant to modification verifiable. Provisions accomplishing these ends are renegotiation-design and revelation mechanisms. But implementing them requires commitment power. Conventional contract technologies to ensure commitment – liquidated damages – are disfavored by courts and themselves subject to renegotiation. Smart contracts written on blockchain ledgers offer a solution. We explain the basic economics and legal relevance of these technologies, and we argue that they can implement liquidated damages without courts. We address the hurdles courts may impose to use of smart contracts on blockchain and show that sophisticated parties' ex ante commitment to them may lead courts to allow their use as pre-commitment devices.

Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure

Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure PDF Author: Oliver Hart
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191521728
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This book provides a framework for thinking about economic instiutions such as firms. The basic idea is that institutions arise in situations where people write incomplete contracts and where the allocation of power or control is therefore important. Power and control are not standard concepts in economic theory. The book begins by pointing out that traditional approaches cannot explain on the one hand why all transactions do not take place in one huge firm and on the other hand why firms matter at all. An incomplete contracting or property rights approach is then developed. It is argued that this approach can throw light on the boundaries of firms and on the meaning of asset ownership. In the remainder of the book, incomplete contacting ideas are applied to understand firms' financial decisions, in particular, the nature of debt and equity (why equity has votes and creditors have foreclosure rights); the capital structure decisions of public companies; optimal bankruptcy procedure; and the allocation of voting rights across a company's shares. The book is written in a fairly non-technical style and includes many examples. It is aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate students, academic and business economists, and lawyers as well as those with an interest in corporate finance, privatization and regulation, and transitional issues in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and China. Little background knowledge is required, since the concepts are developed as the book progresses and the existing literature is fully reviewed.

The Impact of Incomplete Contracts on Economics

The Impact of Incomplete Contracts on Economics PDF Author: Philippe Aghion
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190259019
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The 1986 article by Sanford J. Grossman and Oliver D. Hart titled "A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration" has provided a framework for understanding how firm boundaries are defined and how they affect economic performance. The property rights approach has provided a formal way to introduce incomplete contracting ideas into economic modeling. The Impact of Incomplete Contracts on Economics collects papers and opinion pieces on the impact that this property right approach to the firm has had on the economics profession.

Contract Theory

Contract Theory PDF Author: Patrick Bolton
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262025768
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 746

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Book Description
A comprehensive introduction to contract theory, emphasizing common themes and methodologies as well as applications in key areas. Despite the vast research literature on topics relating to contract theory, only a few of the field's core ideas are covered in microeconomics textbooks. This long-awaited book fills the need for a comprehensive textbook on contract theory suitable for use at the graduate and advanced undergraduate levels. It covers the areas of agency theory, information economics, and organization theory, highlighting common themes and methodologies and presenting the main ideas in an accessible way. It also presents many applications in all areas of economics, especially labor economics, industrial organization, and corporate finance. The book emphasizes applications rather than general theorems while providing self-contained, intuitive treatment of the simple models analyzed. In this way, it can also serve as a reference for researchers interested in building contract-theoretic models in applied contexts.The book covers all the major topics in contract theory taught in most graduate courses. It begins by discussing such basic ideas in incentive and information theory as screening, signaling, and moral hazard. Subsequent sections treat multilateral contracting with private information or hidden actions, covering auction theory, bilateral trade under private information, and the theory of the internal organization of firms; long-term contracts with private information or hidden actions; and incomplete contracts, the theory of ownership and control, and contracting with externalities. Each chapter ends with a guide to the relevant literature. Exercises appear in a separate chapter at the end of the book.

The Costs and Benefits of Ownership

The Costs and Benefits of Ownership PDF Author: Sanford J. Grossman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business enterprises
Languages : en
Pages : 76

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Book Description


The Economics of Contracts

The Economics of Contracts PDF Author: Bernard Salanié
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262195259
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
A concise introduction to the theory of contracts, emphasizing basic tools that allow the reader to understand the main theoretical models; revised and updated throughout for this edition.

Introduction to Earnings Management

Introduction to Earnings Management PDF Author: Malek El Diri
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319626868
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
This book provides researchers and scholars with a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of earnings management theory and literature. While it raises new questions for future research, the book can be also helpful to other parties who rely on financial reporting in making decisions like regulators, policy makers, shareholders, investors, and gatekeepers e.g., auditors and analysts. The book summarizes the existing literature and provides insight into new areas of research such as the differences between earnings management, fraud, earnings quality, impression management, and expectation management; the trade-off between earnings management activities; the special measures of earnings management; and the classification of earnings management motives based on a comprehensive theoretical framework.

Asymmetric Information and the Market Structure of the Banking Industry

Asymmetric Information and the Market Structure of the Banking Industry PDF Author: Mr.Giovanni Dell'Ariccia
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 145195154X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
The paper analyzes the effects of informational asymmetries on the market structure of the banking industry in a multi-period model of spatial competition. All lenders face uncertainty with regard to borrowers’ creditworthiness, but, in the process of lending, incumbent banks gather proprietary information about their clients, acquiring an advantage over potential entrants. These informational asymmetries are an important determinant of the industry structure and may represent a barrier to entry for new banks. The paper shows that, in contrast with traditional models of horizontal differentiation, the steady-state equilibrium is characterized by a finite number of banks even in the absence of fixed costs.

The Nature of the Firm

The Nature of the Firm PDF Author: Oliver E. Williamson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195083569
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This volume features a series of essays which arose from a conference on economics, addressing the question: what is the nature of the firm in economic analysis? This paperback edition includes the Nobel Lecture of R.N. Case.

The Handbook of Experimental Economics

The Handbook of Experimental Economics PDF Author: John H. Kagel
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691213259
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 742

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Book Description
This book, which comprises eight chapters, presents a comprehensive critical survey of the results and methods of laboratory experiments in economics. The first chapter provides an introduction to experimental economics as a whole, with the remaining chapters providing surveys by leading practitioners in areas of economics that have seen a concentration of experiments: public goods, coordination problems, bargaining, industrial organization, asset markets, auctions, and individual decision making. The work aims both to help specialists set an agenda for future research and to provide nonspecialists with a critical review of work completed to date. Its focus is on elucidating the role of experimental studies as a progressive research tool so that wherever possible, emphasis is on series of experiments that build on one another. The contributors to the volume--Colin Camerer, Charles A. Holt, John H. Kagel, John O. Ledyard, Jack Ochs, Alvin E. Roth, and Shyam Sunder--adopt a particular methodological point of view: the way to learn how to design and conduct experiments is to consider how good experiments grow organically out of the issues and hypotheses they are designed to investigate.