Abstract: This paper provides an empirical assessment of long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply contracts to determine optimal contract duration. We study the trade-off between contracting costs due to repeated bilateral bargaining and the risk of being bound in an inflexible agreement in uncertain environments. Furthermore, we add to the theoretical discussion an analysis of different dimensions of transaction frequency and their impact on governance choice. Estimation results of a two-stage model show that the presence of high dedicated asset specificity results in longer contracts thus confirming the predictions of transaction cost economics, whereas the need for flexibility reduces contract duration. With increasing bilateral trading experience between the same trading partners, contract duration decreases. We additionally observe that countries heavily reliant on natural gas imports via LNG are willing to forgo some flexibility in favor of supply security. Contracts dedicated to competitive downstream markets on average are shorter than those concluded with customers in non-liberalized import markets.
JEL Codes: D23, L22, L95
Keywords: Long-term contract, optimal contract duration, transaction cost economics, contracting costs, liquefied natural gas
