nowadays in commercial contracts, parties communicate with together using standard forms. both the party's standards forms usually contain a description of the subject-matter, the price, the quantity and the delivery terms. such a situation is called the battle of forms. in such a case some questions are raised. does the exchange of the conflicting forms create a contract? if so, what are ...

We consider a contract manufacturer that serves a limited number of outsourcers (customers) on a single capacitated production line. The outsourcers have different levels of demand uncertainty and the contract manufacturer faces the question how to allocate the contractual capacity flexibility in an optimal way. The contractual capacity flexibility is a contract parameter that sets the amount o...

In this paper we consider a two-stage ordering problem with a buyer’s minimum commitment quantity contract. Under the contract the buyer is required to give a minimum-commitment quantity. Then the manufacturer has the obligations to supply the minimum-commitment quantity and to provide a shortage compensation policy to the buyer. We formulate a dynamic optimization model to determine the manufa...

E the tension between theory and practice regarding complexity and performance in contract design is especially relevant. The goal of this paper is to understand why simpler contracts may commonly be preferred in practice despite being theoretically suboptimal. We study a two-tier supply chain with a single supplier and a single buyer to characterize the impact of contract complexity and asymme...

Supply chains are often in an environment where the demand is affected by the retailer’s sales effort and the supplier has no accurate information about the retailer’s cost. In this situation, the retailer’s action of distorting his cost information could damage the efficiency of the supply chain. In order to reduce the resulted impairment, the problem of how to coordinate the retailer’s action...

In this article, Professor Allen Blair examines the preeminent role of exclusivity in open-quantity contracts under the Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”). Although the text of the UCC does not mandate that open-quantity contracts be exclusive, the vast majority of courts considering the issue have held that exclusivity is necessary to prevent such contracts from failing for lack of mutuality of o...

In this paper, seller-buyer supply chain coordination with general side-payment contracts is introduced to gain the maximum possible chain profit. In our model, the logistics costs for both buyer and seller are considered and the final demand is also supposed to be a decreasing function of the retail price. Since parties aim to maximize their individual profits, the contractual parameters are s...

If the future market wage is uncertain, engaging in long–term employment is risky, with the risk depending on how regulated the labor market is. In our experiment long– term employment can result either from offering long–term contracts or from repeatedly and mutually opting for rematching. Treatments differ in how regulations restrict the employer’s flexibility in adapting the employment contr...