Can Blockchain Technology Help Overcome Contractual Incompleteness? Evidence from State Laws
利用美国各州逐步通过支持区块链的法律作为自然实验，发现该技术能帮助资产专用性强的企业提升托宾Q值、研发投入和区块链创新，减少纵向整合、增加战略联盟，从而缓解合约不完全带来的效率损失。
Real-world contractual agreements between firms are often incomplete, leading to suboptimal investment and loss of value in supply chain relationships. To what extent can blockchain technology help alleviate problems arising from contractual incompleteness? We examine this issue by exploiting a quasi-natural experiment based on the staggered adoption of U.S. state laws that increased firms’ in-state ability to develop, adopt, and use blockchain technology. We find that, after exposure to a pro-blockchain law, firms with greater asset specificity exhibit more positive changes to Tobin’s Q, research and development, and blockchain-related innovation. Also, such firms appear to rely less on vertical integration, form more strategic alliances, and shift their emphasis to less geographically proximate customers. Overall, our results suggest that blockchain technology can help firms remedy constraints and inefficiencies arising from contractual incompleteness. This paper was accepted by Will Cong, Special Section of Management Science: Blockchains and Crypto Economics. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.04139 .