Archive for 19 April 2007
Things You Shouldn’t Say at Your Dissertation Defense
| Peter Klein |
Kerry Soper’s classic from the July 7, 2000 Chronicle of Higher Education (click the image for the whole thing). Sent to me by Matt Elliott.
And of course there’s Matt Groening’s classic “Grad School” edition of his “Life in Hell” series.
New Paper by Hart and Moore
| Peter Klein |
I blogged previously about Oliver Hart’s work (with John Moore) on “partial contracts.” The paper has been revised and retitled “Contracts as Reference Points” and is available for NBER subscribers here. Abstract:
We argue that a contract provides a reference point for a trading relationship: more precisely, for parties’ feelings of entitlement. A party’s ex post performance depends on whether he gets what he is entitled to relative to outcomes permitted by the contract. A party who is shortchanged shades on performance. A flexible contract allows parties to adjust their outcome to uncertainty, but causes inefficient shading. Our analysis provides a basis for long-term contracts in the absence of noncontractible investments, and elucidates why “employment” contracts, which fix wage in advance and allow the employer to choose the task, can be optimal.
Organizations and Markets 
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