Transactions of any complexity between buyers and sellers are supported by long-term contracts and these contracts are inevitably incomplete. We propose an approach for overcoming contractual incompleteness based on the idea that most people are inclined to follow widely accepted social norms, such as being fair-minded and acting with integrity. We suggest that this tendency can be reinforced if these social norms are incorporated into a formal contract in the form of guiding principles. We develop a model in which guiding principles reduce shading behavior and discuss cases where the approach has been successfully applied in practice (JEL D23, D86, K12).

中文翻译：

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克服契约的不完整性：指导原则的作用

买卖双方之间任何复杂的交易都由长期合同支持，而这些合同不可避免地是不完整的。我们提出了一种克服契约不完整性的方法，该方法基于大多数人倾向于遵循广泛接受的社会规范的想法，例如公正和诚信行事。我们建议，如果将这些社会规范以指导原则的形式纳入正式合同，则可以加强这种趋势。我们开发了一个模型，其中指导原则减少了阴影行为，并讨论了该方法在实践中成功应用的案例（JEL D23、D86、K12）。