Score contribution per author:
α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count
A buyer wants to purchase an innovative good from a seller. Both parties are risk-neutral, and payments from the buyer to the seller must be non-negative. After the contract is signed, the seller privately observes a signal which may be informative about the seller’s costs. We compare two contracting regimes. In the case of specific performance, the courts enforce the contractually specified trade level. In the case of at-will contracting, the seller is free to walk away from the contract after observing the signal. The optimal regime from an economic efficiency point-of-view depends on the informativeness of the signal.