The Economics of Contracts

by Patrick Bolton

Overview

The Economics of Contracts provides a guided tour to the leading ideas in contract theory. It assembles some of the foundational writings on contracting under limited and asymmetric information, incentives and mechanism design. It contains, in particular, the key contributions of five recent Nobel Prize winners in economics and brings together the most important articles that have followed these path-breaking works.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781840644166
Publisher:	Edward Elgar Publishing
Publication date:	02/28/2009
Series:	The International Library of Critical Writings in Economics series , #232
Pages:	992
Product dimensions:	6.62(w) x 9.62(h) x (d)

About the Author

Edited by Patrick Bolton, Barbara and David Zalaznick Professor of Business, Columbia Business School, US

Table of Contents

Contents:

Volume I

Acknowledgements

Introduction Patrick Bolton

PART I ADVERSE SELECTION
1. J.A. Mirrlees (1971), ‘An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation’
2. Michael Mussa and Sherwin Rosen (1978), ‘Monopoly and Product Quality’
3. Michael Spence (1973), ‘Job Market Signaling’
4. Eric Maskin and Jean Tirole (1992), ‘The Principal-Agent Relationship with an Informed Principal, II: Common Values’
5. Michael Rothschild and Joseph Stiglitz (1976), ‘Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets: An Essay on the Economics of Imperfect Information’
6. B. Douglas Bernheim and Michael D. Whinston (1986), ‘Menu Auctions, Resource Allocation, and Economic Influence’
7. Robert M. Townsend (1979), ‘Optimal Contracts and Competitive Markets with Costly State Verification’
8. Philippe Aghion and Patrick Bolton (1987), ‘Contracts as a Barrier to Entry’

PART II MORAL HAZARD
9. J.A. Mirrlees (1999), ‘The Theory of Moral Hazard and Unobservable Behaviour: Part I’
10. Bengt Holmström (1979), ‘Moral Hazard and Observability’
11. Sanford J. Grossman and Oliver D. Hart (1983), ‘An Analysis of the Principal-Agent Problem’
12. Bengt Holmstrom and Paul Milgrom (1990), ‘Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design’
13. Jean-Jacques Laffont and Jean Tirole (1986), ‘Using Cost Observation to Regulate Firms’

PART III MECHANISM DESIGN AND OPTIMAL AUCTIONS
14. Eric Maskin ([1977] 1999), ‘Nash Equilibrium and Welfare Optimality’
15. Claude d’Aspremont and Louis-André Gérard-Varet (1979), ‘Incentives and Incomplete Information’
16. Roger B. Myerson (1981), ‘Optimal Auction Design’
17. Roger B. Myerson and Mark A. Satterthwaite (1983), ‘Efficient Mechanisms for Bilateral Trading’
18. Jacques Crémer and Richard P. McLean (1985), ‘Optimal Selling Strategies under Uncertainty for a Discriminating Monopolist when Demands are Interdependent’
19. John Moore and Rafael Repullo (1988), ‘Subgame-Perfect Implementation’

Name Index


Volume II

Acknowledgements

An introduction by the editor to both volumes appears in Volume I

PART I OPTIMAL CONTRACTS AND ORGANIZATIONS
1. Bengt Holmstrom (1982), ‘Moral Hazard in Teams’
2. Guillermo A. Calvo and Stanislaw Wellisz (1978), ‘Supervision, Loss of Control, and the Optimal Size of the Firm’
3. Jerry R. Green and Nancy L. Stokey (1983), ‘A Comparison of Tournaments and Contracts’
4. Jean Tirole (1986), ‘Hierarchies and Bureaucracies: On the Role of Collusion in Organizations’

PART II CONTRACT DYNAMICS, SELF-ENFORCING CONTRACTS AND RENEGOTIATION
5. Mathias Dewatripont (1989), ‘Renegotiation and Information Revelation over Time: The Case of Optimal Labor Contracts’
6. Oliver D. Hart and Jean Tirole (1988), ‘Contract Renegotiation and Coasian Dynamics’
7. M. Dewatripont and E. Maskin (1995), ‘Credit and Efficiency in Centralized and Decentralized Economies’
8. Robert M. Townsend (1982), ‘Optimal Multiperiod Contracts and the Gain from Enduring Relationships under Private Information’
9. Edward J. Green (1987), ‘Lending and the Smoothing of Uninsurable Income’
10. William P. Rogerson (1985), ‘Repeated Moral Hazard’
11. Bengt Holmstrom and Paul Milgrom (1987), ‘Aggregation and Linearity in the Provision of Intertemporal Incentives’
12. W. Bentley MacLeod and James M. Malcomson (1989), ‘Implicit Contracts, Incentive Compatibility, and Involuntary Unemployment’
13. Jonathan Levin (2003), ‘Relational Incentive Contracts’
14. Bengt Holmström (1999), ‘Managerial Incentive Problems: A Dynamic Perspective’

PART III INCOMPLETE CONTRACTS AND THE THEORY OF THE FIRM
15. Sanford J. Grossman and Oliver D. Hart (1986), ‘The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration’
16. Oliver Hart and John Moore (1990), ‘Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm’
17. Patrick Bolton and Michel D. Whinston (1993), ‘Incomplete Contracts, Vertical Integration, and Supply Assurance’
18. Philippe Aghion and Patrick Bolton (1992), ‘An Incomplete Contracts Approach to Financial Contracting’
19. Philippe Aghion and Jean Tirole (1997), ‘Formal and Real Authority in Organizations’
20. Patrick Bolton and David S. Scharfstein (1990), ‘A Theory of Predation Based on Agency Problems in Financial Contracting’

Name Index