Why and how do contracting parties share variable or fixed costs? How are revenue and cost sharing agreements affected by an expectation of premature termination? How will fixed costs be shared if dissolution occurs without prior notice? These and other elated questions have been examined utilizing a synthetic principal agent framework. The analysis centers around three effects of cost sharing: integrity effect, incentive effect,and control effect. Though somewhat fragmented the available empirical literature, pertaining to many areas of application, will be summarized to disentangle the forces behind cost sharing in contractual relations.