An Institutional Theory of Public Contracts: Regulatory Implications
An Institutional Theory of Public Contracts: Regulatory Implications
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公共契约的制度理论：监管含义
DOI：
10.3386/w14152
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发表时间：
2008
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
P. Spiller
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
P. Spiller
私人缔约的基本特征是其关系性。当面临不可预见或意外的情况时，只要这种关系仍然值得，私人当事人就会调整其所要求的履行，而不需要代价高昂的重新谈判或正式重新订立合同。另一方面，公共合同似乎具有形式化、标准化、官僚化和僵化的程序特点。普遍的看法认为，公共合同通常更不灵活，需要更频繁的正式重新谈判，更倾向于诉讼，提供更弱的激励。总而言之，公共合同被认为“效率”较低。“在本文中，我发展了一种公共契约理论，它适应了私人和公共契约之间的这些明显差异。本文的主旨是，这些差异的直接原因是公共合同和纯私人合同中存在的不同风险，这直接影响到由此产生的合同形式的性质。这一结果的一个基本推论是，公共或政府合同的感知效率低下仅仅是合同适应不同的内在危险的结果，因此是不可直接补救的。最后，我从这里开发的一般框架的主要见解来理解特许权合同的特点。
The fundamental feature of private contracting is its relational nature. When faced with unforeseen or unexpected circumstances, private parties, as long as the relation remains worthwhile, adjust their required performance without the need for costly renegotiation or formal recontracting. Public contracting, on the other hand, seems to be characterized by formalized, standardized, bureaucratic, rigid procedures. Common wisdom sees public contracts as generally more inflexible, requiring more frequent formal renegotiation, having a higher tendency to litigate, and providing weaker incentives. In sum, public contracts are perceived to be less "efficient." In this paper I develop a theory of public contracting that accommodates these stark differences between private and public contracting. The thrust of the paper is that these differences arise directly because of the different hazards present in public and purely private contracts, which directly impact the nature of the resulting contractual forms. A fundamental corollary of this result is that the perceived inefficiency of public or governmental contracting is simply the result of contractual adaptation to different inherent hazards, and as such is not directly remediable. Finally, I apply the main insights from the general framework developed here to understand the characteristics of concession contracts.