Partial Unraveling and Strategic Contract Timing
研究了上下游垄断关系中，批发价格合同签订时机（提前或延迟）与下游制造商部分披露私有信息之间的内生互动，发现即使无成本，延迟签约也可能导致信息不完全揭示，且合同时机可能过早以缓解渠道扭曲。
Renegotiations and last-minute contracting are prevalent in many vertical relationships. Information transmission between firms and buyers can be imperfect as well. In this paper we present a theory to explicate how early/delayed contracting over wholesale prices, and partial unraveling of private information, can sustain each other endogenously in a channel setting with bilateral monopoly. Should the wholesale price be predetermined, the downstream manufacturer would be compelled to fully disclose all private information. By contrast, the to-be-negotiated wholesale price can be potentially affected by manufacturer disclosure or concealment. This can represent a countervailing force for equilibrium revelation to be imperfect, even when disclosure is costless. Thus partial unraveling may emerge if and only if no enforceable contract has been signed (i.e., contracting is delayed). Conversely, partial unraveling can endogenously influence ex ante preferences for contract timing. Therefore, contracting may be deliberately delayed even without learning/cost considerations. Moreover, equilibrium contract timing can be socially too early to alleviate channel distortions, and bilateral bargaining can align private and social preferences for delayed contracting. This paper was accepted by Dmitri Kuksov, marketing.