The Law and Economics of Marriage Contracts

Growth in property ownership has raised the stakes in the distribution of financial assets on divorce. Given high risks of marital failure, this has stimulated the demand for private ordering through enforceable marriage contracts. This paper surveys the existing law and economics literature and legal practice to consider the state of knowledge on the economic theory, scope and limits of written nuptial agreements.     

不完全合同理论的新视角——基于演化经济学的分析

长期以来,主流不完全合同理论一直没有在理论逻辑上圆满解答"合同为什么不完全",其理论基础存在很大的争议,这也导致其研究范式存在内在的逻辑矛盾与冲突,大量有关不完全合同的研究本质上却是关注完全合同。本文尝试从演化经济学的视角重新审视不完全合同理论,强调必须从知识不完全性的视角来阐释合同的不完全性,认为个体的有限认知是合同不完全性的重要理论基础,在此视角下探讨了不完全合同的功能、生成及其演变,并重新考察了权威在不完全合同中的作用。     

Subjective Performance Evaluations and Reciprocity in Principal–Agent Relations

We conduct a laboratory experiment with agents working on, and principals benefiting from, a real effort task in which the agents' performance can only be evaluated subjectively. Principals give subjective performance feedback to agents, and agents have an opportunity to sanction principals. In contrast to existing models of reciprocity, we find that agents tend to sanction whenever the feedback of principals is below their subjective self‐evaluations even if agents' pay‐offs are independent of it. In turn, principals provide more positive feedback (relative to their actual performance assessment of the agent) if this does not affect their pay‐off.     

Wealth effects and agency costs

We analyze how the agent's initial wealth affects the principal's expected profits in the standard principal–agent model with moral hazard.We show that if the principal prefers a poorer agent for all specifications of action sets, probability distributions, and disutility of effort, then the agent's utility of income must exhibit a coefficient of absolute prudence less than three times the coefficient of absolute risk aversion for all levels of income, thus strengthening the sufficiency result of Thiele and Wambach (1999). Also, we prove that there is no condition on the agent's utility of income alone that will make the principal prefer richer agents. Moreover, we show that, for an interesting class of problems, the principal prefers a relatively poorer agent if agent's wealth is sufficiently large. Finally, we discuss how alternative ways of modeling the agent's outside option affects the principal's preferences for agent's wealth.     

行政合同与民事合同的区分标准——以国有建设用地使用权出让合同为例

英美法系没有专门的行政合同的概念,大陆法系分为法国和德国两个理论流派.我国应综合考虑合同的目的和内容来构建我国的行政合同和民事合同的划分标准.国有建设用地使用权土地出让合同的性质,从合同的目的、合同主体、合同内容来看属于"行政合同"范畴,区分过程对于确立区分标准具有实际意义.     

代理问题中的长期关系型契约——解决国有企业委托代理问题的新思考

现代企业的委托代理问题是目前我国国有企业面临的一个现实而棘手的问题,有大量相关文献论及国有企业的委托代理问题及其解决对策,但都忽视了我国国情的特殊性。本文提出了“长期全方位关系型契约”概念,试图从契约的设计、激励约束机制的长期契约安排角度,讨论国有企业委托代理问题,指出委托代理问题解决的关键是委托人与代理人长期综合利益的协调一致。     

The distinction between commercial and non-commercial bus services in Germany: Given by nature?

German public transport services by bus are characterized by a regulatory framework that distinguishes between commercial and non-commercial services. Contrary to the apparent views of legislators, this paper shows that costs and revenues are not the only parameters determining whether or not operators are able to provide services in a commercially viable way.Apart from the local characteristics of the specific service, we show that the classification of services as commercial versus non-commercial is determined in large part by the public transport authorities that set minimum quality standards to be provided by operators. Our analysis shows that the authorities awarding the contracts in some cases affect market organization significantly depending on how they make use of this power. Furthermore, market organization differs substantially with respect to the awarding structure and the contractual relationships, thus creating a challenge for operators and authorities in an embryonic market.     

Bankruptcy and firm finance

This paper analyzes how an enforcement mechanism that resembles a court affects firm finance. The court is described by two parameters that correspond to enforcement costs and the amount of creditor/debtor protection. We provide a theoretical and quantitative characterization of the effect of these enforcement parameters on the contract loan rate, the default probability and welfare. We analyze agents’ incentive to default and pursue bankruptcy and show that when the constraints that govern these decisions bind, the enforcement parameters can have a sharply non-linear effect on finance. We also compute the welfare losses of “poor institutions” and show that they are non-trivial. The results provide guidance on when models which abstract from enforcement provide good approximations and when they do not.      

Contracts for dummies? The performance of investors in contracts for difference

Investors widely use contracts for difference (CFDs) to leverage and short sell underlying financial assets. We investigate the after cost performance of investors in Australian Securities Exchange listed share CFDs, and find that market order CFD trades earn small positive returns at the daily horizon, with negative returns reported for one month to one year horizons due to financing costs. Market orders also net sell positions, which suggests that investors use CFDs for shorting opportunities. Overall, we find that liquidity demanders in CFDs obtain favourable execution, which is inconsistent with the view that CFDs are used by naive individuals.     

Procuring complex performance in construction: London Heathrow Terminal 5 and a Private Finance Initiative hospital

This paper takes as its starting point the fact that complex projects, interpreted as multiple dependent interactions between many stakeholders over time, challenge traditional procurement practices based on the serial purchase of discrete components. The paper examines how the procurement management of such projects – procuring complex performance – can be conducted. The paper utilises two contrasting case study examples of high-profile UK construction project procurement. The findings suggest that the choice of mechanisms or interfaces for the governance of upstream supply relationships critically relates to subsequent performance. The theoretical contribution is a fusion of procurement literature with the influential CoPS literature.