In this paper we examine a simple but suggestive setting in which the income number arises naturally (and directly) from competitive markets. While no explicit assumptions are made about individual firm's objectives, it turns out that equilibrium is consistent with the maximization of a number...

This note studies a moral hazard model of joint production in which there are strong gains to coordination. The mechanism we propose for resolving the tacit collusion problem that arises in our setting is simple. A key aspect of the mechanism is the use of at- will contracts which provide the...

We formally establish the link between linear algebra and the double entry bookkeeping system: the system transforms a vector of numerical values corresponding to transaction amounts to a financial statements vector through matrix multiplication. The matrix is called a generator matrix (it is...