nep-cta New Economics Papers
on Contract Theory and Applications
Issue of 2021‒08‒30
five papers chosen by
Guillem Roig
University of Melbourne

  1. Moral-hazard-free insurance: mean-variance premium principle and rank-dependent utility By Zuo Quan Xu
  2. Specialized Investments and Firms’ Boundaries: Evidence from Textual Analysis of Patents By Jan Bena; Isil Erel; Daisy Wang; Michael S. Weisbach
  3. Asymmetric Group Loan Contracts : Experimental Evidence By Carli, Francesco; Suetens, Sigrid; Uras, Burak; Visser, Philine
  4. The Risk Premia of Energy Futures By Adrian Fernandez-Perez; Ana-Maria Fuertes; Joelle Miffre
  5. Holding Up Green Energy By Nicholas Ryan

  1. By: Zuo Quan Xu
    Abstract: This study exams a Pareto optimal insurance problem, where the insured maximizes her rank-dependent utility and the insurer employs the mean-variance premium principle. To eliminate some possible moral hazard issues, we only consider moral-hazard-free insurance contracts that obey the incentive compatibility constraint. The insurance problem is first formulated as a non-concave maximization problem involving Choquet expectation, then turned into a concave quantile optimization problem and finally solved by calculus of variations method. The optimal contract is expressed by a semi-linear second order double-obstacle ordinary differential equation with nonlocal operator. When the probability weighting function has a density, an effective numerical method is proposed to compute the optimal contract.
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2108.06940&r=
  2. By: Jan Bena; Isil Erel; Daisy Wang; Michael S. Weisbach
    Abstract: Inducing firms to make specialized investments through bilateral contracts can be challenging because of potential hold- up problems. Such contracting difficulties have long been argued to be an important reason for acquisitions. To evaluate the extent to which this motivation leads to mergers, we perform a textual analysis of the patents filed by the same lead inventors of the target firms before and after the mergers. We find that patents of inventors from target firms become 28.9% to 46.8% more specific to those of acquirers’ inventors following completed mergers, benchmarked against patents filed by targets and a group of counterfactual acquirers. This pattern is stronger for vertical mergers that are likely to require specialized investments. There is no change in the specificity of patents for mergers that are announced but not consummated. Overall, we provide empirical evidence that contracting issues in motivating specialized investment can be a motive for acquisitions.
    JEL: G34 L14 L22
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29174&r=
  3. By: Carli, Francesco; Suetens, Sigrid (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research); Uras, Burak (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research); Visser, Philine
    Keywords: group loan contracts; asymmetric contracts; joint liability; coordination game; microfinance; laboratory experiment
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tiu:tiucen:918d8091-4038-4d14-af04-84076368f1fd&r=
  4. By: Adrian Fernandez-Perez (AUT - Auckland University of Technology); Ana-Maria Fuertes (Sir John Cass Business School); Joelle Miffre (Audencia Business School)
    Abstract: This paper studies the energy futures risk premia that can be extracted through long-short portfolios that exploit heterogeneities across contracts as regards various characteristics or signals and integrations thereof. Investors can earn a sizeable premium of about 8% and 12% per annum by exploiting the energy futures contract risk associated with the hedgers' net positions and roll-yield characteristics, respectively, in line with predictions from the hedging pressure hypothesis and theory of storage. Simultaneously exploiting various signals towards style-integration with alternative weighting schemes further enhances the premium. In particular, the style-integrated portfolio that equally weights all signals stands out as the most effective. The findings are robust to transaction costs, data mining and sub-period analyses.
    Keywords: Integration,Long-short portfolios,Risk premium,Energy futures markets
    Date: 2021–10–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03312959&r=
  5. By: Nicholas Ryan
    Abstract: Green energy is produced by relationship-specific assets that are vulnerable to hold-up if contracts are not strictly enforced. I study the role of counterparty risk in the procurement of green energy using data on the universe of solar procurement auctions in India. The Indian context allows clean estimates of how risk affects procurement, because solar power plants set up in the same states, by the same firms, are procured in auctions variously intermediated by either risky states themselves or the central government. I find that: (i) the counterparty risk of an average state increases solar energy prices by 10%; (ii) the intermediation of the central government eliminates this risk premium; (iii) higher prices due to risk reduce investment, because state demand for green energy is elastic. The results suggest that the risk of hold-up places developing countries at a disadvantage in the procurement of green energy.
    JEL: L14 O13 Q42
    Date: 2021–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29154&r=

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