Contractual Arrangements and Bargaining Institutions in Inter-Firm and Intra-Firm Strategic Environments

私人之间的合同无处不在。买家和卖家、雇主和雇员、贷款人和债务人之间的关系都是由他们撰写的合同塑造的。然而，私人合同并不是孤立存在的，它往往对第三方产生真正和深远的影响(即产生外部性或溢出效应)。这提出了重要的公共政策问题，即监管私人合同的适当作用。虽然关于外部性契约的理论经济学文献很发达，但关于这一主题的实证工作很少。这个项目将在实验室环境中考察合同的私人设计及其社会福利效应，并根据受试者的表现支付报酬。第一个项目考虑了一类公司间的战略环境。商业合同通常包括限制当事人未来与他人打交道的能力的条款。例如，排他性交易合同、损害赔偿条款、最低承诺和竞业禁止条款。虽然这些合同安排发挥了保护特定关系投资和减少风险暴露的重要作用，但它们也可能对竞争产生不利影响。第二个项目涉及公司内部团队生产环境，在这种环境中，私人合同影响利润的大小和分配，并可能影响社会福利。这项研究将对文献做出几个重要的贡献。首先，这些发现将阐明在战略环境中的均衡选择，在这些环境中，理论含义是模糊的。其次，这项工作将为行为因素的影响提供经验证据，如社会偏好、道德考虑、社会接近、损失厌恶和框定。最后，为这些研究开发的非侵入性软件将有助于理解复杂战略环境中的决策过程。当前的方法论方法强调了将实验和行为观察与理论建模相结合的重要性。这项工作将加强对私人合同安排的社会福利影响的了解，从而有助于为政策制定者提供信息。

Contracts between private parties are ubiquitous. The relationships between buyers and sellers, employers and employees, lenders and debtors are all shaped by the contracts they write. Rather than existing in isolation, however, private contracts often have real and profound effects on third parties (i.e., generate externalities or spillovers). This raises important public policy questions about the appropriate role for the regulation of private contracts. While the theoretical economics literature on contracting with externalities is well-developed, there is little empirical work on the topic. This project will examine the private design of contracts and their social welfare effects in a laboratory setting with human subjects paid according to their performance.The first project considers a class of inter- firm strategic environments. Business contracts often include clauses that restrain the ability of parties to deal with others in the future. Examples include exclusive dealing contracts, damages provisions, minimum commitments, and non-tocompete clauses. While these contractual arrangements serve the important role of protecting relationship-specific investment and mitigating exposure to risk, they may also adversely affect competition. The second project addresses intra-firm team production environments where the private contracts affect the magnitude and distribution of profits, and might affect social welfare. This research will make several important contributions to the literature. First, the findings will shed light on equilibrium selection in strategic settings where the theoretical implications are ambiguous. Second, the work will provide empirical evidence of the effects of behavioral factors, such as social preferences, moral considerations, social proximity, loss aversion and framing. Finally, the non-invasive software developed for these studies will contribute to the understanding of decision-making processes in complex strategic environments.The current methodological approach underscores the importance of combining experimental and behavioral observation with theoretical modeling. This work will enhance understanding of the social welfare effects of private contractual arrangements, and thus help inform policy makers.