Contracts, Hold-Up, and Exports: Textiles and Opium in Colonial India

Trade and export, it is argued, spur economic growth. This paper studies the microeconomics of exporting. We build a heuristic model of transactions between exporters and producers and relate it to East India Company operations in colonial Bengal. Our model and the historical record stress two difficulties: the exporter and its agents might not uphold pricing agreements, and producers might not honor sales contracts. The model shows when procurement succeeds or fails, highlighting the tension between these two hold-up problems. We analyze several cases including the East India Company's textile venture, the famous Opium Monopoly, and present-day contract farming.

Pricing, cost recovery, and production efficiency in transport : a critique

The purpose of this paper is to assess the efficacy of optimal pricing formulas for pricing and cost recovery and to develop a general framework within which to analyze the performance of public transport. Five sources of inefficiency in public transport are discussed: (a) the goals of the enterprise or the regulation of its operations; (b) the structure of the output market; (c) the control mechanism between government and the enterprise; (c) the managerial incentive structure; and (d) the conditions of employment. Even when public enterprises are bent on maximizing consumer welfare, costs are not necessarily minimized. Lack of competition may also exacerbate the problem of asymmetric information between owners and managers. Owners of public firms are unlikely to exert pressure on public enterprises to operate efficiently. And public firms may be protected from insolvency by"soft"budget constraints.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Public Sector Economics&Finance

Contracts, Hold-Up, and Exports: Textiles and Opium in Colonial India

Trade and export, it is argued, spur economic growth. This paper studies the microeconomics of exporting. We build a heuristic model of transactions between exporters and producers and relate it to East India Company operations in colonial Bengal. Our model and the historical record stress two difficulties: the exporter and its agents might not uphold pricing agreements, and producers might not honor sales contracts. The model shows when procurement succeeds or fails, highlighting the tension between these two hold-up problems. We analyze several cases including the East India Company's textile venture, the famous Opium Monopoly, and present-day contract farming.

Vertical Foreclosure and Specific Investments

Are vertical mergers efficient or restraints to trade? This paper examines this long-standing question in a new setting and reaches new conclusions. We consider a realistic environment where downstream firms can make specific investments in several suppliers at once. In keeping with the "Chicago School" of regulation, we assume inputs are exchanged efficiently regardless of the ownership structure. Nevertheless, we find that vertical merger can be inefficient. A merged firm has an incentive to manipulate its ex ante investments to increase the ex post revenues of its supply unit. It will increase its investment in its internal supplier and decrease its investment in an external supplier relative to the efficient level of investments. The "skewing" is reinforced in equilibrium by other buyers who respond by skewing their own investments. The result is a reduction in the variety of inputs purchased by downstream firms. We relate the theory to studies of vertical mergers in pharmaceuticals and cable television.

Amount and time exert independent influences on intertemporal choice

Intertemporal choices involve trade-offs between the value of rewards and the delay before those rewards are experienced. Canonical intertemporal choice models such as hyperbolic discounting assume that reward amount and time until delivery are integrated within each option prior to comparison1,2. An alternative view posits that intertemporal choice reflects attribute-wise processes in which amount and time attributes are compared separately3–6. Here, we use multi-attribute drift diffusion modelling (DDM) to show that attribute-wise comparison represents the choice process better than option-wise comparison for intertemporal choice in a young adult population. We find that, while accumulation rates for amount and time information are uncorrelated, the difference between those rates predicts individual differences in patience. Moreover, patient individuals incorporate amount earlier than time into the decision process. Using eye tracking, we link these modelling results to attention, showing that patience results from a rapid, attribute-wise process that prioritizes amount over time information. Thus, we find converging evidence that distinct evaluation processes for amount and time determine intertemporal financial choices. Because intertemporal decisions in the lab have been linked to failures of patience ranging from insufficient saving to addiction7–13, understanding individual differences in the choice process is important for developing more effective interventions

Reciprocal Exchange: A Self-Sustaining System.

Reciprocal exchange, or gift exchange, remains a widespread means of obtaining goods and services. This paper examines the persistence of reciprocal exchange by formalizing the interaction between self-enforcing exchange agreements and monetary market exchange. When more people engage in reciprocal exchange, market search costs increase, reciprocity is easier to enforce and yields higher utility. Thus, personalized exchange can persist even when it is inefficient. Conversely, large markets can destroy reciprocity when reciprocal exchange is efficient. The results characterize the use of personal 'connections' as a system of reciprocal exchange and explain the disappearance of reciprocity when tribes encounter markets. Copyright 1996 by American Economic Association.