ACCTG 502 | Session 7 | Contract contingencies and uncertainty: Evidence from product market contracts

ACCTG 502 | Session 7 | Contract contingencies and uncertainty: Evidence from product market contracts - 2025 Kai Wai Hui, Jun Oh, Guoman She, P. Eric Yeung Introduction: The abstract presents the paper as the first large-scale empirical study of contract contingencies in product market agreements. It shows how earlier research mainly focused on "contract completeness" by counting the actions specified, while this study advances the field by explicitly analyzing contingency clauses. The authors contend that product market agreements are inherently more complex than financial contracts because they must account for uncertain state outcomes affecting both buyers and suppliers. The study aims to measure how firms use contingencies to manage uncertainty and tests competing theories on whether uncertainty results in fewer or more contingencies in practice.