Termination clauses in partnerships

B-Tier
Journal: European Economic Review
Year: 2010
Volume: 54
Issue: 5
Pages: 718-732

Score contribution per author:

0.670 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We show that when designing a partnership agreement partner firms may prefer not to specify how to allocate the commonly owned assets should there be an early termination of the contract. By not including such a clause, firms induce litigation before a Court with positive probability. Firms create this ex-post inefficiency in order to increase the levels of non-contractible investments, i.e. increase the ex-ante efficiency. The absence of an asset allocation clause works as a "discipline device" that mitigates the hold-up problem within the partnership. In our set-up, no other contract but that without an asset allocation clause can credibly create an ex-post inefficiency.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:eecrev:v:54:y:2010:i:5:p:718-732
Journal Field
General
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-25