Property Rights in Sequential Exchange
研究了序贯交易中交易者信息不完全的问题，发现强产权可能阻碍非人格化交易，并提出了克服专业化与非人格化交易之间权衡的机制条件。
We analyze the “sequential exchange” problem in which traders have imperfect information on earlier contracts. We show that under sequential exchange, it is in general not possible to simultaneously implement two key features of markets—specialization between asset ownership and control, and impersonal trade. In particular, we show that in contrast with the conventional wisdom in economics, strong property rights—enforceable against subsequent buyers—may be detrimental to impersonal trade because they expose asset buyers to the risk of collusive relationships between owners and sellers. Finally, we provide conditions under which a mechanism that overcomes the trade-off between specialization and impersonal trade exists. We characterize and discuss such mechanism. Our results provide an efficiency rationale for how property rights are enforced in business, company and real estate transactions, and for the ubiquitousness of “formalization” institutions that the literature has narrowly seen as entry barriers.