Costly contracting in a long‐term relationship

We examine a model of contracting where parties interact repeatedly and can contract at any point in time, but writing formal contracts is costly. A contract can describe the external environment and the parties' behavior in a more or less detailed way, and the cost of writing a contract is proportional to the amount of detail. We consider both formal (externally enforced) and informal (self‐enforcing) contracts. The presence of writing costs has important implications both for the optimal structure of formal contracts, particularly the tradeoff between contingent and spot contracting, and for the interaction between formal and informal contracting. Our model sheds light on these implications and generates a rich set of predictions about the determinants of the optimal mode of contracting.     

Trust, contracting and the prospectus process

This study explores the role of trust and the ways in which trust is created within the prospectus process. It is argued that trust is a necessary condition for economic exchange and that trust must exist prior to contracting. The theoretical analysis provided deconstructs the contract as the original event and points to the limitations of traditional accounting analyses in understanding economic exchange. In addition, examples from the prospectus process are used to illustrate how some of the capital market institutions and institutional practices that we observe create and recreate the trust necessary for exchange.     

Financial Market Fragmentation and Reforms in Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, and Tanzania

This article reports the findings from surveys of formal andinformal institutions and their clients in Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria,and Tanzania. It investigates the hypothesis that reformingfinancially repressive policies would not be sufficient to overcomefragmentation of financial markets because of structural andinstitutional barriers to interactions across different marketsegments. The four countries have substantially fragmented financialmarkets, with weak linkages between formal and informal segmentsand interest rate differentials that cannot be adequately explainedby differences in costs and risks. Nevertheless, the relativelylow transaction costs and loan losses of informal institutionsindicate that they provide a reasonably efficient solution toinformation, transaction cost, and enforcement problems thatexclude their clients from access to formal banking services.The findings imply that financial liberalization and bank restructuringin the African context should be accompanied by complementarymeasures to address institutional and structural problems, suchas contract enforcement and information availability, and toimprove the integration of informal and formal financial markets.     

The trust-control nexus in public private partnership (PPP) contracts

This study examines the trust-control nexus in the context of public private partnership (PPP) contracts. It draws on the literature and the case of two UK school PPP contracts with varying degree of trust among the partners to illustrate the role of control in building competence trust and goodwill trust, and how trust in turn affects control. Prior to entering into the PPP contract, under a condition of high risk and low trust, reliance was placed on formal control to evaluate competence trust for the purpose of selecting a preferred bidder, whilst goodwill trust, which takes time to evolve, played no role in the selection process. During contract implementation, formal control formed the basis for demonstrating competence and nurturing goodwill trust. Trust subsequently determined the extent of reliance on formal control and informal control. In the case of School 1, high level of trust led to a reliance on informal control which enabled partners to focus resources on solving problems, whilst formal control operated in the background. In the case of School 2, low level of trust and perceived lack of transparency led to a demand for additional formal control. This study adds to the trust-control literature by shedding light on how trust relates to control, in the context of long-term PPP contracts which are difficult to specify in advance.     

Does trust matter for the cost of bank loans?

This paper extends the literature related to the role of trust on economic activity, focusing on the influence of trust on lender-borrower relationships and analysing its effect on the interest rate spread for a sample of 20,699 loans from 47 countries over the period 2003–2018. We consider not just the role of trust, but also how its effect is moderated by the country's legal enforcement and degree of economic development. The results show that trust has no effect on loan spreads. However, trust is found to reduce loan spreads when a country's formal institutions are weak, in line with the existence of a substitutive effect between formal and informal institutions in reducing interest rates. As regards the degree of economic development, our results show that both trust and legal enforcement have a greater influence on the interest rate spread of bank loans in countries with a lower level of economic development.     

功能视角下投资银行组织模式变迁的回顾与前瞻

投资银行的核心功能是创造一个超越法律的信息市场和采用合约以及相应的自我实施机制,为经济主体提供与信息高敏感度证券资产相关的各种金融服务。历史地看,合伙制是投资银行实现这一功能的理想模式。随着信息通讯技术的变革和金融理论的发展,传统业务隐含技能的代码化推动投资银行从合伙制模式而转向公众化。次贷危机后,以放弃法人独立性为代价来换取联邦金融救助成为美国主要投资银行的惟一选择。尽管这种模式可在获得信息优势、范围经济等利益的同时,还可借助联邦安全网实现稳定,但与之伴随的严重利益冲突,不仅可能威胁金融安全和稳健性,而且可能压抑市场创新,导致其服务效率的下降,最终影响投资银行的机构功能地位。     

Balanced Scorecards: A Relational Contract Approach

Reward systems based on balanced scorecards often connect pay to an index, that is, a weighted sum of multiple performance measures. We show that such an index contract may indeed be optimal if performance measures are nonverifiable so that the contracting parties must rely on self-enforcement. Under commonly invoked assumptions (including normally distributed measurements), we show that the weights in the index reflect a tradeoff between distortion and precision for the measures. The efficiency of the contract improves with higher precision of the index measure, because this strengthens incentives, and correlations between measurements may for this reason be beneficial. There is a caveat, however, because the index contract is not necessarily optimal for very precise measurements, although it is shown to be asymptotically optimal. We also consider hybrid measurements, and show that the principal may want to include verifiable performance measures in the relational index contract in order to improve incentives, and that this has noteworthy implications for the formal contract.     

农村土地承包经营权融资方式创新——基于镇江市土地流转信托实践

十八届三中全会提出要加快构建新型农业经营体系,赋予农民更多财产权利.在此背景下农村土地流转信托迅速受到各方关注.相比于农村土地承包经营权抵押贷款等融资方式,土地流转信托在坚持农村土地所有权和承包权不变的前提下,发挥了农村土地承包经营权的融资功能,找到了一种既让农民流出土地后获得稳定收益,又帮助各类主体流入土地后获得足够金融支持实现土地高效利用的模式.农民、农业经营者以及信托公司三方以土地流转信托项目为平台,产融结合,实现了农地集约化、专业化、规模化的经营,推动了农地增值、农业增效、农民增收.     

New development: The application of incomplete contract theory to documenting Social Impact Bonds

ABSTRACT

Nobel laureate Oliver Hart’s work in developing a theory of incomplete contracting is relevant to explaining the evolution of the pay for success contracts that undergird Social Impact Bonds (SIBs). By its very nature, a pay for success contract that supports a SIB is likely to be functionally incomplete in that it is unable to describe and differentiate in the initial contract all relevant future states of the world in which the contract is to operate. Navigating this incomplete world can be particularly challenging when it comes to government contracting for quality outcomes in social services. Accordingly, Hart’s incomplete contracting framework can help us to think more clearly about how to document a pay for success contract that best supports a SIB transaction.     

Social Trust,Institution, and Economic Growth: Evidence from China

Recent research has demonstrated the important role of social trust in economic growth. As a form of informal institution, social trust and formal institution are inextricable and intrinsically related. This article aims to investigate the relationship between social trust and institution, and their combined effects on economic growth. In an empirical investigation of cross-provincial data in the period 2001–2009 in China, our estimates suggest that the increase in social trust significantly promotes economic growth. The improvement of formal institution is also beneficial to economic growth. The effect of social trust on economic growth depends on the institution level, and this effect weakens with institutional strength.     

Accounting Information in Financial Contracting: The Incomplete Contract Theory Perspective

This paper reviews theoretical and empirical work on financial contracting that is relevant to accounting researchers. Its primary objective is to discuss how the use of accounting information in contracts enhances contracting efficiency and to suggest avenues for future research. We argue that incomplete contract theory broadens our understanding of both the role accounting information plays in contracting and the mechanisms through which efficiency gains are achieved. By discussing its rich theoretical implications, we expect incomplete contract theory to prove useful in motivating future research and in offering directions to advance our knowledge of how accounting information affects contract efficiency.     

Public Sector Outsourcing as an Exchange Option

The outsourcing of government activities is justified primarily by expected cost savings. In the formal process of determining whether there are potential savings from contracting out, public sector agencies in Australia are required by published government guidelines to measure the relevant costs of in-house activities and to compare these with external bids. Similar and in technical respects essentially identical requirements exist in Great Britain. The cost comparison methodology advocated in these various publications is deficient in that it makes no allowance for the financial value of the option to contract out. Like other options, the option to contract out provides a hedge against uncertainty, and is all the more valuable the more uncertain (less predictable) the agency's future costs of in-house and external service arrangements. In the face of inherently uncertain cost streams, there is something to be said for conserving all available options. By interpreting the option to contract out as a financial asset with theoretically measurable value, arguments for government agencies maintaining at least some in-house capabilities are given a basis in 'rational economics'.     

The contract,accounting and trust: A case study of an international joint venture (IJV) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

This paper reports on the results of a case study that examines the effect of the contract and accounting on inter-organisational trust in an international joint venture (IJV). The empirical setting of the research was an IJV relation between a United Arab Emirates (UAE) firm and its western partner. Data were gathered from multiple sources, including documents, observations, interviews and discussions with managers. The paper aims to explore the process of trust development and the role of the contract and accounting in this. We find that trust developed differently for the partners. Moreover the trust concerns of the partners were not the same. Based on this we conclude that trust was not automatically reciprocated. Instead it needs relating to other items such as the contract, accounting and also the institutional environment. The open-book accounting we observed could only be termed ‘partial’ because the western partner had access to the local partner's books but not the vice versa. But this partial open-book accounting created conflicts between the partners. We argue that developing one kind of trust through one particular medium may help one party but may damage the relationship between the partners.     

Trust-Based Relationships in Local Government Contracting

This article examines issues of trust and competition as they relate to a number of services provided by British local government. The first section outlines the changing policy context of competition for local authority services and is followed by a discussion of the nature of trust under contracting, drawing on elements of (primarily) economic theory to identify the features of contracting which we would expect to find in a 'low trust world'. The authors ask whether these features appear to be present in contracting and point to some features of the CCT legislative framework which may help to explain this. After reviewing private sector practice, the extent to which it could be replicated under CCT is examined.     

Financial contracts,opportunism, and disclosure management

This article shows that if all variables that determine a firm's future cash flows are not contractible, it can be ex ante optimal to design a financial contract that admits debtholders waiving debt covenants on a discretionary basis and firms investing opportunistically subsequent to contracting. Further, as the contractible variable becomes less informative, the contract attaches greater significance to it. Finally, uncertainty in the magnitude of reporting latitude induces aggressive reporting by the firm to avoid violating the covenant or to enhance the chances of a waiver. The debtholders respond by sometimes not allowing the firm to implement mutually beneficial projects.     

信任被定价了吗？ ——来自债券市场的证据

仅依赖法律等正式制度无法确保金融或经济的长期发展,信任等非正式制度在其中的作用不可或缺。鉴于此,本文研究信任这一非正式制度在债券市场中的价值。研究发现,信任不仅有助于提高债券信用评级,还有助于降低债券信用利差。同时,利用最高法“失信被执行人”数据还发现,失信及失信程度的增加会降低债券信用评级,提高债券信用利差。此外,本文还利用路径分析法发现,信任不仅会直接影响债券评级和定价,还会通过提升公司财务报告质量间接地发挥作用,即不仅投资者主观上更愿相信高信任度地区的企业,客观上这些企业也的确更为可信。进一步地,信任对债券评级和定价的积极作用在国有企业、金融业更发达地区的企业以及发债次数更多的企业中更为显著,即投资者与发行人之间的重复博弈机会越多,信任的价值也越大。本文研究结论提醒政府在推动企业融资成本下降时,应着重加强对信任这种地区乃至国家公共品的培育和建设。     

Evolution and institutional foundation of the hawala financial system

This article examines the evolution and the institutional foundation of the century-old Islamic hawala financing system. Analysis of the functional principles of this system will show that it is a highly efficient, extremely robust institutional arrangement for overcoming the risks of opportunism among the transaction partners. It is an institution that was developed against the backdrop of a lack of formal legal systems. Thus, hawala can be seen as club-like arrangements, which are able to provide the transaction parties with an institutional framework to assure enforcement of contracts without relying on any national law. Today, therefore, it is able to expand outside and independently of existing laws and regulations. It is able to move large amounts of money without recourse of the formal banking system and even without retaining any bookkeeping notes. Instead, it is based on the trust of the participating parties and its social and religious embeddedness within the Islamic community.     

正规金融与非正规金融:机制、效率与实证挑战

正规金融与非正规金融的定位和关系,不仅是重要的学术问题,也是影响间接金融体系改革方向的关键。本文从机制视角建立学理框架,从信息和履约两个基础维度,讨论正规金融与非正规金融的相对效率及决定因素,并通过系统梳理相关文献,指出现有实证研究的成果与挑战;进而结合中国特征,讨论如何提高正规金融与非正规金融的效率,最后提出未来研究方向。本文认为,正规金融与非正规金融因信息和履约机制不同而各有其独立存在价值,其相对效率取决于不同经济发展阶段的社会网络基础和征信、法律体系,现有实证文献对两者作用的分歧主要源于分类、样本局限和内生性处理。本文从机制视角进行分析,体现了正规金融和非正规金融的金融属性,为探索相关领域学术研究和政策制定提供启示。     

Contract costs,stakeholder capitalism,and ESG

Observed contract structures are competitive solutions to the problem of maximizing stakeholder welfare when contracting is costly. Winning contract structures typically set fixed payoffs for most stakeholders, with residual risk borne by shareholders, who then get most of the decision rights. With rising interest in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, there is sentiment for replacing the max shareholder wealth decision rule with max shareholder welfare. This view does not recognize that investors view max welfare in terms of their overall consumption-investment portfolios. Since firms are not privy to the total ESG exposures of shareholders, max shareholder wealth is the appropriate decision rule.     

Contracting in Peer Networks

We consider multiagent multifirm contracting when agents benchmark their wages to those of their peers, using weights that vary within and across firms. When a single principal commits to a public contract, optimal contracts hedge relative wage risk without sacrificing efficiency. But compensation benchmarking undoes performance benchmarking, causing wages to load positively on peer output, and asymmetries in peer effects can be exploited to enhance profits. With multiple principals, a “rat race” emerges: agents are more productive, with effort that can exceed the first best, but higher wages reduce profits and undermine efficiency. Wage transparency and disclosure requirements exacerbate these effects.