Generous Long-Term Contracts

This paper argues that in long-term consumer–producer relationships, menus of contracts can often be advantageously replaced by a single generous contract such that, at any point in time, a consumer’s cumulative transfers equal the cumulative transfers they would have made under the contract that would have been best for them in hindsight. Such generous long-term contracts can increase skeptical consumers’ demand for complex and higher-powered contracts while approximately implementing the same outcomes as the underlying menu evaluated by a rational decision maker. Applications include voluntary load shedding in retail electricity markets and cost sharing in health insurance.