讲座主题：Data-Driven Hold-Up and Relational Contracts

主讲嘉宾： 陆卓然 上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院 助理教授

讲座时间：2025年10月29日周三14:00

讲座地点：沙河校区学院11号楼203

嘉宾简介： 陆卓然，现任上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院助理教授。他于清华大学获得经济学学士学位，并在美国加州大学洛杉矶分校取得经济学博士学位。陆卓然是一位微观经济理论学者，研究领域涵盖契约理论、信息经济学、组织经济学、网络经济学和数字经济。目前，他的研究主要聚焦于信号产品的最优定价、基于网络结构的团队监督设计、具有网络效应的智能互联产品的商业策略，以及数字经济中的关系型契约等话题。他的研究成果已发表于 Journal of Economic Theory、MIS Quarterly 等国际顶尖期刊，并担任 Journal of Economic Theory、RAND Journal of Economics、Management Science 等多个顶尖期刊的匿名审稿人。他目前主持一项国家自然科学基金青年项目，并参与国家自然科学基金重大项目和专项项目各一项。

内容摘要： This paper studies how relational contracts can mitigate hold-up problems between platforms and online sellers when platforms exploit their data advantage to compete against sellers. In each period, a seller decides whether to remain on a platform and how much to invest in product innovation, which depreciates without continued investment from the seller. The platform then decides whether to copy the seller’s product. If it does, both compete; otherwise, they share the monopoly profit. We show that when the product depreciates fast, the optimal relational contract is stationary and efficient under sufficiently high discount factors. In contrast, when depreciation is slow, the platform always copies the seller under high discount factors, whereas cooperation can be sustained at intermediate levels. The efficiency of the relational contract depends critically on the seller’s outside option and the depreciation factor. The outside option has discontinuous and nonmonotonic effects on efficiency, implying that higher outside options may not benefit online sellers. Moreover, the depreciation factor can have opposing effects on efficiency, depending on whether the platform copies the seller when the relational contract is breached.