Contractibility and the Design of Research Agreements
研究了可合同性如何影响合同设计，发现当研究活动不可合同时，期权合同最优，并通过580份生物技术研究协议验证了这一预测。
We analyze how contractibility affects contract design. A major concern when designing research agreements is that researchers use their funding to subsidize other projects. We show that, when research activities are not contractible, an option contract is optimal. The financing firm obtains the option to terminate the agreement and, in case of termination, broad property rights. The threat of termination deters researchers from cross-subsidization, and the cost of exercising the termination option deters the financing firm from opportunistic termination. We test this prediction using 580 biotechnology research agreements. Contracts with termination options are more common when research is non-contractible.