Strategic ex ante contracts: rent extraction and opportunity costs
研究卖家在拍卖前与一位不知情买家签订战略事前合同，该合同能更准确反映联合机会成本，从而从新进入者处提取更多租金，并可能增加社会福利。
This article cosiders the possibility that a seller can contract with one uninformed buyer prior to an auction involving two potential buyers. The seller's optimal strategic ex ante contract more accurately reflects joint opportunity costs of the seller and the contracted buyer, and therefore extracts more rent from the entrant. Moreover, this ex ante contract mitigates the seller's ex post rent seeking vis‐à‐vis the contracted buyer. Accordingly, it may create more social welfare than the absence of ex ante contracts, depending upon the contracted buyer's financial constraint and the distributions of trade surplus. Implementation of the optimal strategic ex ante contract and policy implications are discussed.