How Block Booking Facilitated Self‐Enforcing Film Contracts
以派拉蒙案涉及的批量预订电影放映合同为例，研究合同条款如何帮助交易双方建立自我执行关系，通过合同约束和声誉资本灵活调整来应对电影价值的不确定性。
This paper uses the block‐booking film exhibition contracts that were the subject of Paramount to examine the role of contract terms in facilitating self‐enforcing relationships. Because of the large uncertainty in film value at the time of contracting, it is difficult to fully specify optimal exhibitor performance (such as exhibition run length) ex ante. Instead, the efficient contractual arrangement contractually overconstrains exhibitors and relies on the superior reputational capital of distributors to flexibly adjust contract terms ex post. The analysis illustrates that, rather than thinking of contracts as either court enforced or self‐enforced, transactors generally combine court‐enforced and self‐enforced sanctions by using contract terms to economize on their limited reputational capital. Block booking is explained within this framework by its effects on reducing the variance in the value of the film package and, therefore, the demands placed on the distributors' reputational capital.