Inflorescence of Mistrust

copenhagen: climate of mistrust

Two weeks of wrangling and grandstanding at the United Nations climate change conference ended with the “Copenhagen Accord”, which was a paper-thin cover-up of what was a near complete failure, though it does enable the process to move forward. These reflections on the climate negotiations first provide a brief encapsulation of events, followed by a discussion of the key negotiation issues that...

Is mistrust self-fulfilling?

The degree to which you expect others to behave in a trustworthy manner is crucial for your willingness to trust. An interesting question, however, is whether your expectation (if manifested) can affect the likelihood that your trust is repaid. The answer to this question has important implications for the stability of trust (or lack thereof). To observe whether expectations impact the repaymen...

Breaking the Cycle of Mistrust

Mistrust-Based Digital Rights Management

INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 48 I. WHY DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT? .............................................. 51 A. Copy-Control DRM .................................................................. 51 B. Bundled Uses and Per-Use Pricing .......................................... 52 C. Patent-Royalty Collection ...........

Cooperation and Mistrust in Relational Contracts

Work and trade relationships are often governed by relational contracts, in which incentives for cooperative action today stem from the prospective future benefits of the relationship. In this paper, we study how reductions in clarity about the financial consequences of actions, induced by incomplete information about the costs of providing quality, affect relational contracts in buyer-seller r...