Incomplete Contracts and Applications

不完整的合同和申请

• 批准号: 9711422
• 负责人: Oliver Hart
• 金额: $ 20.82万
• 依托单位: National Bureau of Economic Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1997
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1997-07-15 至 2002-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9711422&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Incomplete; Contracts; Applications

Project Summary Incomplete contract theory is gradually becoming accepted as a useful way to understand the nature of organizations. This project continues my work in this area. The project includes four main topics. First, I investigate why parties typically contract bilaterally, rather than multilaterally, and what determines who contracts with whom. For example, if someone wants a house built, they often will sign a contract with a general contractor, who in turn will contract with a plumber, an electrician, etc. Why is this preferable to contracting directly with the plumber and electrician? The second topic is a continuation of my work on entrepreneurial debt contracting. So far my theoretical analysis has focused on a two-period relationship between an entrepreneur and an investor, although I have generalized the analysis to many periods, when there is perfect certainty. In the current project I carry out a generalization to the case of many periods where there is uncertainty. I also include a role for equity. In the third topic, I continue my work on boundaries between public and private organizations. In my work so far, I have developed a theoretical analysis of the choice between public and private ownership and applied the analysis to understand the case for prison privatization. In the current project I extend the analysis to education and health care. An important new intellectual issue that arises is the role of competition between providers in determining the choice between public and private ownership. Finally, I conduct a theoretical analysis of the cooperative form. Most commercial organizations are owned and controlled by people who do not work in them or consume their product. Nonetheless, there are some important exceptions: for instance, in the service sector, partnerships or worker cooperatives are quite common; e.g., take the case of law firms. My work is an attempt to understand better the costs and benefits of cooperatives, and why cooperatives are so uncommon in the manufacturing sector.

不完全契约理论作为一种理解组织本质的有用方法正逐渐被人们所接受。这个项目延续了我在这个领域的工作。该项目包括四个主要主题。首先，我调查了为什么各方通常签订双边合同，而不是多边合同，以及是什么决定了谁与谁签订合同。例如，如果有人想盖房子，他们通常会与总承包商签订合同，而总承包商又会与水管工、电工等签订合同。为什么这比直接与水管工和电工签订合同更可取？第二个主题是我对企业债务合同研究的延续。到目前为止，我的理论分析主要集中在企业家和投资者之间的两期关系上，尽管我已经将分析推广到许多时期，当存在完全确定性时。在当前的项目中，我对存在不确定性的许多时期的情况进行了概括。我还包括一个公平的角色。在第三个主题中，我继续研究公共和私人组织之间的界限。到目前为止，在我的工作中，我已经对公有制和私有制之间的选择进行了理论分析，并将该分析应用于理解监狱私有化的案例。在当前的项目中，我将分析扩展到教育和医疗保健。出现的一个重要的新知识问题是供应商之间的竞争在决定公有制和私有制之间的选择中的作用。最后，对合作形式进行了理论分析。大多数商业组织的所有者和控制者并不在其中工作，也不消费他们的产品。然而，也有一些重要的例外：例如，在服务部门，伙伴关系或工人合作社相当普遍；例：以律师事务所为例。我的工作是试图更好地理解合作社的成本和收益，以及为什么合作社在制造业中如此罕见。