In this paper, I study bilateral trade, where the seller can undertake specific investments before the binary trade transaction takes place. I identify a novel reason for hold-up and contractual inefficiency in this canonical setting. The investing party can shirk for strategic reasons; that is, exert an effort so low that trade becomes inefficient and is being rescinded. Under a fixed-price contract (the second-best mechanism in the absence of the shirking problem), strategic shirking can arise regardless of the initially contracted trade price. Moreover, if a fixed-price contract leads to strategic shirking, there exists no general revelation mechanism to restore equilibrium trade. I show that the shirking problem is more severe when the parties trade after having learned the buyer's valuation, as opposed to the case of an “experience good” where trade is finalized before this information materializes. Finally, when both buyer and seller undertake specific investments, shirking and non-shirking equilibria are shown to coexist.

中文翻译：

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双边贸易中的战略推卸*

在本文中，我研究双边贸易，卖方可以在二元贸易交易发生之前进行特定投资。我确定了在这种规范环境中造成拖延和合同效率低下的一个新原因。投资方可以出于战略原因推脱；也就是说，付出的努力如此之低，以至于贸易变得低效并被取消。在固定价格合同下（不存在推卸问题的次优机制），无论最初合同的交易价格如何，都可能出现战略推卸。此外，如果固定价格合同导致战略推卸责任，则不存在恢复均衡贸易的普遍启示机制。我表明，当双方在了解买方估价后进行交易时，推卸问题更为严重，与“体验商品”的情况相反，在这种情况下，交易在此信息实现之前就已完成。最后，当买方和卖方都进行特定的投资时，推卸和非推卸均衡被证明是共存的。