IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/emetrp/v92y2024i5p1735-1774.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Contractual Chains

Author

Listed:
  • Joel Watson

Abstract

This paper develops a model of private bilateral contracting, in which an exogenous network determines the pairs of players who can communicate and contract with each other. After contracting, the players interact in an underlying game with globally verifiable productive actions and externally enforced transfers. The paper investigates whether such decentralized contracting can internalize externalities that arise due to parties being unable to contract directly with others whose productive actions affect their payoffs. The contract‐formation protocol, called the “contracting institution,” is treated as a design element. The main result is positive: There is a contracting institution that supports efficient equilibria for any underlying game and connected network. A critical property is that the institution allows for sequential contract formation or revision. The equilibrium construction features assurance contracts and cancellation penalties.

Suggested Citation

  • Joel Watson, 2024. "Contractual Chains," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 92(5), pages 1735-1774, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:emetrp:v:92:y:2024:i:5:p:1735-1774
    DOI: 10.3982/ECTA19797
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA19797
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3982/ECTA19797?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:emetrp:v:92:y:2024:i:5:p:1735-1774. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.