Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/221408 
Year of Publication: 
1993
Series/Report no.: 
Discussion Paper No. 1051
Publisher: 
Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science, Evanston, IL
Abstract: 
Contracts adopted with later renegotiation in mind may take simple forms. In a principal-agent model, if renegotiation may occur after the agent chooses efforet, the principal protects against unfavorable renegotiation by "selling the project" to the agent via a sales contract. If only singleton (single-scheme) contracts are feasible, the equilibrium initial contract must be a sales contract if the principal's renegotiation position will be inherently inferior in the sense that (a) the agent will have the bargianing power; (b) the principal will not observe the agent's effort, and (c) the agent has the talent, i.e. a rich set of feasible efforts, to exploint contractual nuances. Renegotiation necessarily occurs, and it yields (second-best) efficient allocations. Even when meny (multiple-scheme) contracts are available, if the selection of a scheme from a menu entails any cost, then the final contract is a singleton and equilibrium renegotiation occurs. If there is any complexity cost to specifying a menuy, the initional contract must also be a singleton; it is necessarily a sales contract if the agent has talent. A weak forward induction refinement criterion is used to obtain these results.
Subjects: 
contracts
principal-agent
moral hazard
renegotiation
incentives
JEL: 
D21
D82
C72
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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