Résumé en anglais

The article offers an illustration of the respective role of institutions and contracts and their interactions in the coordination process of contracting parties, drawing upon an empirical analysis of defense procurement contracts in France. The articles seeks to provide an explanation of the performance of contracts and their efficiency through a careful study of the joint effects of institutions (defined as the set of multilateral, formal, and informal rules that mandatorily apply to the contracting parties) and contractual choices (defined as the bilateral choices that the parties agree upon in the contractual process).