Essays in Law and Economics [Elektronische Ressource] / Daniel Göller. Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftliche

Daniel G Oller

Sujets

• Recht

Informations

• Publié par: rheinische_friedrich-wilhelms-universitat_bonn
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 16
• Langue: English

Extrait

Essays in Law and Economics
Inaugural-Dissertation
zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors
der Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftswissenschaften
durch die
Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftliche Fakultat
der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat
Bonn
vorgelegt von
Daniel Goller
aus Lohmar
Bonn 2011II Essays in Law and Economics
Dekan: Prof. Dr. Klaus Sandmann
Erstreferent: Prof. Dr. Urs Schweizer
Zweitreferent: Prof. Dr. Matthias Krakel
Tag der mundlichen Prufung: 02.12.2011Acknowledgements
There are many people I am indebted to for their invaluable support. First and fore-
most, I owe thanks to my supervisor Urs Schweizer. Above all, it was his patience and
experience that guided me on how to evolve mere research ideas into well written and
polished research papers. Whenever I was stuck it was him who had the big picture in
mind and brought me back on track. I also want to thank Matthias Krakel for acting
as a referee on my thesis committee and for providing me with many helpful comments.
I would like to thank Alexander Stremitzer, who contributed to Chapter I of this
thesis. It was him, who introduced me to the art of writing a modern law and economics
research paper. Not only that he helped me to expand my background of law, he also
taught me how to convey, in a nutshell, the often complicated economic intuition to
the reader. Moreover, I am grateful to have worked together with Michael Hewer on
Chapter III. Having a great background not only in economics but also in law, he added
to our work many insightful sources from the legal literature and really brought law
and economics together.
Without the stimulating research environment provided by the Bonn Graduate School
of Economics (BGSE), my work would not have been possible. I am not only grateful
for nancial support but in particular for the possibility to take part in many great
research seminars and workshops. The feedback I received presenting my work in the
BGSE Micro Workshop proved to be even more valuable than what I took home from
international conferences. I am especially grateful to Urs Schweizer, who encouraged
me to join the BGSE and who has, in his position as the BGSE’s director, managed
to establish our institution at the very top of all graduate schools in Germany. I also
owe thanks to Susanne Goldlucke, Daniel Muller, Ansgar Wohlschlegel and many other
colleagues in Bonn for proofreading and providing me with many helpful comments.IV Essays in Law and Economics
Finally, I am deeply indebted to my family and friends. Most notably to my parents,
who have unwaveringly supported me in everything I do.Contents
I. Breach Remedies Inducing Hybrid Investments 13
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2. The model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3. Benchmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4. Reliance damages with renegotiations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5. Expectation damages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.1. Expectation damages without renegotiations . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.2. Expectation damages with renegotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
II. Expectation Damages and Bilateral Cooperative Investments 31
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2. The model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3. Ex-post payo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4. Buyer takes the performance decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5. Seller takes the performance decision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
6. Ex-post breach game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
7. Divisible contracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
8. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
III.Economic Analysis of Taking Rules: the Bilateral Case 51
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2. The model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3. Non-benevolent government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4. Benevolent government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
A. Appendices 67
1. Appendix to Chapter I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
1.1. Proofs of Propositions and Lemmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
1.2. Allowing for Buyer’s breach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71VI Essays in Law and Economics
2. Appendix to Chapter II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
2.1. Proofs of Propositions and Lemmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3. Appendix to Chapter III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.1. Comparison between private and e cient investment . . . . . . 80
3.2. Proofs of Propositions and Lemmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81List of Figures
I.1. Timeline of the model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
I.2. Subgame induced by RD if renegotiations are possible. . . . . . . . . . 19
I.3. Subgame induced by expectation damages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
I.4. Subgame induced by expectation damages if renegotiation is possible. . 27
II.1. Timeline of the model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
II.2. Breachgame induced by expectation damages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
II.3. Best responses to e cient investment of the other party for any p
v +max[c v; 0]. Note that we did not derive the exact shape of theh l l
seller’s best response. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
III.1.Timeline of the model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
A.1. Expectation damages without renegotiation if the buyer can breach. . . 71
A.2. Expectation damages with renegotiation if the buyer can breach. . . . . 73Introduction
The papers that constitute the main part of this thesis represent only a small proportion
of the insights and knowledge I accumulated during my time in the Bonn Graduate
School of Economics. It would, hence, be too short-sighted to use this space solely to
discuss and to emphasize the importance of the results I worked out in the main part.
Instead, let me present to you the big picture my work is part of. To do so, I look back
to recapitulate on how my research ideas came to be and how they evolved into full-
edged economic research papers. Moreover, I want to point out a few misconceptions
I stumbled upon while broadening my knowledge of the law and economics literature.
Two of the three papers that constitute this thesis are situated in a branch of the
literature that is most often referred to as the \economic analysis of contract law".
This literature, that perhaps began blooming with the seminal work by Shavell (1980),
considers the performance of contracts against the background of so called legal\breach
remedies". A breach remedy constitutes a standard legal rule that determines the
consequences of a breach of contract. As an example, the default breach remedy of
common law, \expectation damages", stipulates that the victim of breach receives a
payment that makes her or him, if possible, as well of as performance would have. Given
that such a breach remedy de nes the legal background, economists try try to