The Effect of Repeated Interaction on Contract Choice: Evidence from Offshore Drilling

We argue that repeated interaction and high-powered formal contractscan be either substitutes or complements, depending on the relativeimpact of repeated interaction on incentive problems and contractingcosts. In the offshore drilling industry, we find that oil andgas companies are less likely to choose fixed-price contractsas the frequency of their interaction with a driller increases.This supports the conclusion that repeated interaction and high-poweredformal contracts are substitutes in this setting, indicatingthat repeated interaction reduces incentive problems more thancontracting costs. In addition, we find that using instrumentalvariables to account for the endogenous matching of drillersto projects strengthens our results.