Litigation and the Optimal Combination of Vague and Precise Clauses in Contracts

In this paper we determine the optimal combination of precise and vague clauses written in contracts when the parties face writing and enforcement costs, the second ones in the form of litigation. We show that the parties may prefer to write vague instead of precise clauses not only because they are cheaper to write but also because they are cheaper to enforce. We extend Battigalli and Maggi (2002) to model the decision of a principal who chooses clauses to describe the actions that an agent has to perform. As both players observe nature imperfectly they may call for a court to determine whether the agent performed the right action. We show that the principal tends to sue the agent more frequently when a task is described with a precise instead of a vague clause. The reason is the following: with precise clauses, the frequency of litigation increases with the value of the task that is described because a smaller discrepancy in the beliefs of the players is enough to trigger a dispute, but with vague clauses, that frequency decreases with the value of the task because the probability that the agent performs the right action increases with the value of the task. The direct implication is that vague and not precise clauses (as it is predicted by Battigalli and Maggi) are used to describe the most important tasks of a contract

Litigation and the Optimal Combination of Vague and Precise Clauses in Contracts

In this paper we determine the optimal combination of precise and vague clauses written in contracts when the parties face writing and enforcement costs, the second ones in the form of litigation. We show that the parties may prefer to write vague instead of precise clauses not only because they are cheaper to write but also because they are cheaper to enforce. We extend Battigalli and Maggi (2002) to model the decision of a principal who chooses clauses to describe the actions that an agent has to perform. As both players observe nature imperfectly they may call for a court to determine whether the agent performed the right action. We show that the principal tends to sue the agent more frequently when a task is described with a precise instead of a vague clause. The reason is the following: with precise clauses, the frequency of litigation increases with the value of the task that is described because a smaller discrepancy in the beliefs of the players is enough to trigger a dispute, but with vague clauses, that frequency decreases with the value of the task because the probability that the agent performs the right action increases with the value of the task. The direct implication is that vague and not precise clauses (as it is predicted by Battigalli and Maggi) are used to describe the most important tasks of a contract

Cell Culturing of Swine Aortic Smooth Muscle Cells

A thesis presented to the faculty of the School of Sciences and Mathematics at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by Rita E, Bustos on May 2, 1979

Cosecha silvestre de peperina (Minthosthachys mollis) en Córdoba, Argentina : implicancias socioeconómicas

En la Provincia de Córdoba se comercializan numerosas especies de plantas aromáticas. Una de las más importantes es la peperina (Minthosthachys mollis (Kunth.) Griseb), utilizada en la elaboración de infusiones digestivas, yerba mate compuesta y bebidas tipo amargo. La demanda de las empresas que utilizan la especie en sus productos es cubierta exclusivamente por cosecha silvestre, en su mayor parte proveniente de una zona considerada marginal para la explotación agrícola-ganadera. Ante esta situación, se evaluó la importancia socioeconómica de la comercialización de la especie en la región, a través de encuestas dirigidas a recolectores y a empresas acopiadoras. Los resultados más importantes mostraron que la recolección de peperina está entre las 3 fuentes principales de ingresos del recolector

Using a Gridded Global Dataset to Characterize Regional Hydroclimate in Central Chile

Central Chile is facing dramatic projections of climate change, with a consensus for declining precipitation, negatively affecting hydropower generation and irrigated agriculture. Rising from sea level to 6000 m within a distance of 200 km, precipitation characterization is difficult because of a lack of long-term observations, especially at higher elevations. For understanding current mean and extreme conditions and recent hydroclimatological change, as well as to provide a baseline for downscaling climate model projections, a temporally and spatially complete dataset of daily meteorology is essential. The authors use a gridded global daily meteorological dataset at 0.25° resolution for the period 1948–2008, adjusted by monthly precipitation observations interpolated to the same grid using a cokriging method with elevation as a covariate. For validation, daily statistics of the adjusted gridded precipitation are compared to station observations. For further validation, a hydrology model is driven with the gridded 0.25° meteorology and streamflow statistics are compared with observed flow. The high elevation precipitation is validated by comparing the simulated snow extent to Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images. Results show that the daily meteorology with the adjusted precipitation can accurately capture the statistical properties of extreme events as well as the sequence of wet and dry events, with hydrological model results displaying reasonable agreement with observed streamflow and snow extent. This demonstrates the successful use of a global gridded data product in a relatively data-sparse region to capture hydroclimatological characteristics and extremes

Enterprise Architecture Approach for Project Management and Project-Based Organizations: A Review

Project-based organizations (PBOs) derive income from conducting projects for their clients. Maintaining the most effective and efficient project governance style is an ongoing process for these organizations as the context continuously changes. Enterprise architecture (EA) is a systemic approach that supports organizations in modeling and describing themselves in different layers, such as strategy, business, application, and technology. This literature review describes the current state of EA usage in improving and quickly revising project management governance in PBOs to benefit practitioners and researchers for an integrated view of EA, PM, and PBO, and identification of future research gaps. This review used an EA model composed of layers as an analytical framework. The extracted bibliometric and content data from selected articles were processed using the VOSviewer tool for identifying and understanding the relationships between main concepts through network mapping. The selected articles are oriented to internal organization projects, mainly in information technology (IT). The need to align projects with business is highlighted, with EA positioned as a governance tool. It was found that application of EA in PBOs is rare. A trend toward using popular PM and EA frameworks, such as PMBOK and ArchiMate, was observed

The REMSDB Macroeconomic Database of The Spanish Economy

This paper presents a new macroeconomic database for the Spanish economy, REMSDB. The construction of this database has been oriented to conducting medium-term simulations for policy evaluation with the REMS model, a large Rational Expectations macroeconomic Model for Spain. The paper provides a detailed description of the data and documents its main statistical properties. The database is thought to be of major interest to related applications,whether strictly associated with the REMS model or, rather, with empirical macroeconomic studies.Spanish Data, Growth Data, Business Cycle Data, REMS