Partial Unraveling and Strategic Contract Timing

Renegotiations and last-minute contracting are prevalent in many vertical relationships. Information transmission between firms and buyers can be imperfect as well. In this paper we present a theory to explicate how early/delayed contracting over wholesale prices, and partial unraveling of private information, can sustain each other endogenously in a channel setting with bilateral monopoly. Should the wholesale price be predetermined, the downstream manufacturer would be compelled to fully disclose all private information. By contrast, the to-be-negotiated wholesale price can be potentially affected by manufacturer disclosure or concealment. This can represent a countervailing force for equilibrium revelation to be imperfect, even when disclosure is costless. Thus partial unraveling may emerge if and only if no enforceable contract has been signed (i.e., contracting is delayed). Conversely, partial unraveling can endogenously influence ex ante preferences for contract timing. Therefore, contracting may be deliberately delayed even without learning/cost considerations. Moreover, equilibrium contract timing can be socially too early to alleviate channel distortions, and bilateral bargaining can align private and social preferences for delayed contracting. © 2021 INFORMS.