A concise introduction to the theory of contracts, emphasizing basic tools that allow the reader to understand the main theoretical models; revised and updated throughout for this edition.

A concise introduction to the theory of contracts, emphasizing basic tools that allow the reader to understand the main theoretical models; revised and updated throughout for this edition. The theory of contracts grew out of the failure of the general equilibrium model to account for the strategic interactions among agents that arise from informational asymmetries. This popular text, revised and updated throughout for the second edition, serves as a concise and rigorous introduction to the theory of contracts for graduate students and professional economists. The book presents the main models of the theory of contracts, particularly the basic models of adverse selection, signaling, and moral hazard. It emphasizes the methods used to analyze the models, but also includes brief introductions to many of the applications in different fields of economics. The goal is to give readers the tools to understand the basic models and create their own. For the second edition, major changes have been made to chapter 3, on examples and extensions for the adverse selection model, which now includes more thorough discussions of multiprincipals, collusion, and multidimensional adverse selection, and to chapter 5, on moral hazard, with the limited liability model, career concerns, and common agency added to its topics. Two chapters have been completely rewritten: chapter 7, on the theory of incomplete contracts, and chapter 8, on the empirical literature in the theory of contracts. An appendix presents concepts of noncooperative game theory to supplement chapters 4 and 6. Exercises follow chapters 2 through 5. Praise for the previous edition: “The Economics of Contracts offers an excellent introduction to agency models. Written by one of the leading young researchers in contact theory, it is rigorous, clear, concise, and up-to-date. Researchers and students who want to learn about the economics of incentives will want to read this primer.”—Jean Tirole, Institut D'Économie Industrielle, Universite des Sciences Sociales, France “Students will find this a very useful introduction to the ideas of contract theory. Salanié has managed to summarize a large amount of material in a relatively short number of pages in a highly accessible and readable manner.”—Oliver Hart, Professor of Economics, Harvard University

Contract Law: A Case & Problem-Based Approach is a unique casebook that provides an organizational structure introducing students to each major area of contract law before exploring these areas in greater depth later in the casebook. Specifically, the casebook is broken into three major parts, each of which is designed not only to orient the students to the major subject areas of contract law but also meant to help them appreciate the connections and relationships between and among these various subject areas. Part I, the “30,000-foot view,” familiarizes students with contract law, discusses the sorts of problems with which contract law is concerned, and introduces them to some of the basic rules and theories governing contract law. Part II, the “10,000-foot view,” exposes students to each major substantive area of contract law in more depth by discussing one classic case in each area, along with additional historical, theoretical, and contextual materials to supplement the black-letter doctrine. After finishing Parts I and II, the student will have a basic understanding of each major area of contract law, along with a good understanding of how these parts fit together. Part III is therefore designed to explore each of the major subject areas in greater depth, and is organized along the lines of a traditional contracts casebook, including a healthy mix of classic and modern cases, short problems, and exercises. New to the Second Edition: Additional materials and cases added to explore the contract doctrines of impossibility and impracticability in light of past and current epidemics (in the case of polio) and pandemics (in the case of COVID-19). Additional case added to explore the relationship between Contract Law, Civil Rights, and Constitutional Law. Reorganization of some materials in Chapter 8 (defenses). More focused notes and appendices Professors and student will benefit from: Organization exposes students to main concepts, and gives professors a number of choices about how to teach their course. Helpful doctrinal introductions to each new major substantive section. Historical, theoretical, and comparative materials are presented to help students understand and think critically about the black-letter rules. “Thinking tools” feature that helps the student think critically about the law, along with theoretical, historical, doctrinal, contextual, and practice-oriented notes enrich the students’ black-letter experience. Enjoyable, contextual materials that are included after a number of classic cases help to bring to light fascinating background information.

A comprehensive introduction to contract theory, emphasizing common themes and methodologies as well as applications in key areas. Despite the vast research literature on topics relating to contract theory, only a few of the field's core ideas are covered in microeconomics textbooks. This long-awaited book fills the need for a comprehensive textbook on contract theory suitable for use at the graduate and advanced undergraduate levels. It covers the areas of agency theory, information economics, and organization theory, highlighting common themes and methodologies and presenting the main ideas in an accessible way. It also presents many applications in all areas of economics, especially labor economics, industrial organization, and corporate finance. The book emphasizes applications rather than general theorems while providing self-contained, intuitive treatment of the simple models analyzed. In this way, it can also serve as a reference for researchers interested in building contract-theoretic models in applied contexts.The book covers all the major topics in contract theory taught in most graduate courses. It begins by discussing such basic ideas in incentive and information theory as screening, signaling, and moral hazard. Subsequent sections treat multilateral contracting with private information or hidden actions, covering auction theory, bilateral trade under private information, and the theory of the internal organization of firms; long-term contracts with private information or hidden actions; and incomplete contracts, the theory of ownership and control, and contracting with externalities. Each chapter ends with a guide to the relevant literature. Exercises appear in a separate chapter at the end of the book.

This book provides a framework for thinking about economic instiutions such as firms. The basic idea is that institutions arise in situations where people write incomplete contracts and where the allocation of power or control is therefore important. Power and control are not standard concepts in economic theory. The book begins by pointing out that traditional approaches cannot explain on the one hand why all transactions do not take place in one huge firm and on the other hand why firms matter at all. An incomplete contracting or property rights approach is then developed. It is argued that this approach can throw light on the boundaries of firms and on the meaning of asset ownership. In the remainder of the book, incomplete contacting ideas are applied to understand firms' financial decisions, in particular, the nature of debt and equity (why equity has votes and creditors have foreclosure rights); the capital structure decisions of public companies; optimal bankruptcy procedure; and the allocation of voting rights across a company's shares. The book is written in a fairly non-technical style and includes many examples. It is aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate students, academic and business economists, and lawyers as well as those with an interest in corporate finance, privatization and regulation, and transitional issues in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and China. Little background knowledge is required, since the concepts are developed as the book progresses and the existing literature is fully reviewed.

A graduate-level introduction to the economic theories of taxation.

This is a revised and expanded edition of a popular textbook on the economics of farm households in developing countries. The second edition retains the same building blocks designed to explore household decision-making in a social context. Key topics are efficiency, risk, time allocation, gender, agrarian contracts, farm size and technological change. For these and other topics, household economic behaviour represents the outcome of social interactions within the household, and market interactions outside the household. A new chapter on the environment combines exposition of economic tools not previously covered in the book with examination of household and community decision-making in relation to environmental resources.