Skip to main content

Abstract

One of the critical roles for the entrepreneur in successfully starting a new firm and introducing new products or services is to mobilize the necessary resources. These activities include hiring employees and lining up suppliers of intermediate goods and services. Both of these activities involve contracting with other parties. Therefore, the issues dealt with in the economics of contracting are of great importance to a theory of entrepreneurship. One of these issues is the implication of incomplete contracts. Although there is a vast literature on this topic, the approach of most of this literature is to assume that the contract already exists and that it is incomplete due to exogenous contracting costs, unforeseen contingencies or indescribable states.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Aghion, P. and P. Bolton, 1992, An Incomplete Contracts Approach to Financial Contracting, Review of Economic Studies 59, 473–494.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aghion, P., Dewartripont, M. and Ray, P., 1994, Renegotiation Design with Unverifiable Information, Econometrica 62, 257–282.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alchian, A.A., 1984, Specificity, Specialization, and Coalitions, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 140, 34–49.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alchian, A.A. and Demsetz, H., 1972, Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization, American Economic Review 62, 777–795.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alchian, A.A. and S. Woodward, 1988, The Firm is Dead, Long Live the Firm: A Review of Oliver E. Williamson’s The Economic Institutions of Capitalism, Journal of Economic Literature 26, 65–79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Allen, F. and Gale, D., 1992, Measurement Distortion and Missing Contingencies in Optimal Contracts, Economic Theory 2, 1–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Al-Najjar, N.I., 1995, Incomplete Contracts and the Governance of Complex Relationships, American Economic Review 85, 432–441.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderlini, L. and Felli, L., 1994, Incomplete Written Contracts: Undescribable States of Nature, Quarterly Journal of Economics 109, 1085–1124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bernheim, B. and Whinston, M., 1994, Incomplete Contracts and Strategic Ambiguity, working paper.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cheung, S.N.S., 1983, The Contractual Nature of the Firm, Journal of Law and Economics 26, 1–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coase, R.H., 1937, The Nature of the Firm, Economica 4, 386–405.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coase, R.H., 1988, The Theory of the Firm: Meaning, Journal of Law, Economics And Organization 4, 19–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crawford, V.P., 1988, Long-term Relationships Governed by Short-term Contracts, American Economic Review 78, 485–499.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewatripont, M. and Maskin, E., 1995, Contractual Contingencies and Renegotiation, RAND Journal of Economics 26, 704–719.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dye, R.A., 1985a, Costly Contract Contingencies, International Economic Review 26, 233–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dye, R.A., 1985b, Optimal Length of Labor Contracts, International Economic Review 26, 251–270.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fourie, F.C.v.N., 1989, The Nature of Firms and Markets: Do Transaction Approaches Help? South African Journal of Economics 57, 142–160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fudenberg, D., Holmstrom, B. and Milgrom, P., 1990, Short-term Contracts and Long-term Agency Relationships, Journal of Economic Theory 51, 1–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grossman, S. and Hart, O., 1986, The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration, Journal of Political Economy 94, 691–719.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hadfield, G., 1990, Problematic Relations: Franchising and the Law of Incomplete Contracts, Stanford Law Review 42, 927–992.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harris, M. and Holmstrom, B., On the Duration of Agreements, International Economic Review 28, 389–406.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart, O., 1998, Incomplete Contracts and the Theory of the Firm, Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 4, 119–139.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart, O., 1989, Incomplete Contracts, in John Eatwell, Murray Milgate and Peter Newman (eds.) The New Palgrave: Allocation, Information and Markets, New York: W. W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart, O., 1990, Is ‘Bounded Rationality’ an Important Element of a Theory of Institutions? Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 146, 696–702.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart, O. and Moore, J., 1988, Incomplete Contracts and Renegotiation, Econometrica 56, 755–789.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hart, O. and Moore, J., 1990, Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm, Journal of Political Economy 98, 1119–1158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayek, F.v., 1945, The Use of Knowledge in Society, American Economic Review 35, 519–530.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hermalin, B. and Katz, M., 1991, Moral Hazard and Verifiability: the Effects of Renegotiation in Agency, Econometrica 59, 1735–1753.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holmstrom, B. and Milgrom, P., 1990, Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership and Job Design, Working Paper Series D #45, Yale School of Organization and Management.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huberman, G. and Kahn, C., 1988, Limited Contract Enforcement and Strategic Renegotiation, American Economic Review 78, 471–484.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jost, P., 1991, Monitoring in Principal-Agent Relationships, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 147, 517–538.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, B., 1983, Contracting Costs and Residual Claims: The Separation of Ownership and Control, Journal of Law and Economics 26, 367–374.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klein, B., Crawford, R.A and Alchian, A.A., 1978, Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process, Journal of Law and Economics 21, 297–326

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maskin, E. and Tirole, J., 1997, Unforeseen Contingencies, Property rights, and Incomplete Contracts, working paper, Harvard University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Milgrom, P. and Roberts, J., 1988, Economic Theories of the Firm: Past Present and Future, Canadian Journal of Economics 21, 444–458.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Noldeke, G. and Schmidt, K., 1994, Option Contracts and Renegotiation: a Solution to the Hold-up Problem, RAND Journal of Economics 26, 163–179.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Putterman, L., 1986, The Economic Nature of the Firm: Overview, in Louis Putterman (ed.) The Economic Nature of the Firm, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radner, R., 1981, Monitoring Cooperative Agreements in a Repeated Principal-Agent Relationship, Econometrica 49, 1127–1148.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spier, K.E., 1992, Incomplete Contracts and Signaling, RAND Journal of Economics 23, 432–443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas, J. and Worrall, T., 1990, Income Fluctuation and Asymmetric Information, Journal of Economic Theory 51, 367–390.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tirole, J., 1998, Incomplete Contracts: Where Do We Stand? working paper, MIT.

    Google Scholar 

  • Townsend, R.M., 1982, Optimal Multiperiod Contracts and the Gain from Enduring Relationships under Private Information, Journal of Political Economy 90, 1166–1186.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, O.E., 1975, Markets and Hierarchies New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, O.E., 1985, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism, Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, O.E., 1988, The Logic of Economic Organization, Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 4, 65–94.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Gifford, S. (1998). Optimally Incomplete Contracts. In: The Allocation of Limited Entrepreneurial Attention. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5605-3_6

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5605-3_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-7564-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-5605-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics