Courts of Law and Unforeseen Contingencies
研究了法院在契约面临不可预见偶发事件时的角色，分析了法院宣布契约无效对投资激励和保险效果的影响，并刻画了最优法院决策规则。
We study a contracting model with unforeseen contingencies in which the court is an active player. Ex ante, the contracting parties cannot include the risky unforeseen contingencies in the contract they draw up. Ex post, the court observes whether an unforeseen contingency occurred and decides whether to void or uphold the contract. If the contract is voided by the court, the parties can renegotiate a new agreement ex post. There are two effects of a court that voids contracts. The parties' incentives to undertake relationship-specific investment are reduced, and the parties enjoy greater insurance against the unforeseen contingencies that the ex ante contract cannot account for. In this context, we fully characterize the optimal decision rule for the court. The behavior of the optimal court is determined by the trade-off between the need for incentives and the gains from insurance that voiding in some circumstances offers to the agents.