We show how a brand manufacturer's control over retail prices can lead to efficiencies when consumers rely on prices as a signal of quality. For this we first show how higher prices can be associated with both higher quality perception as well as higher actual quality. We next identify a...

We analyze the interaction between financial institutions' internal compensation policy, the quality of loans, and their securitization decision. We also assess the case for requiring financial institutions to defer bonus pay so as to make incentives more commensurate with the longer-term risk...

We offer a theory of the "boundary of the firm" that is tailored to banking, as it builds on a single inefficiency arising from risk-shifting and as it takes into account both interbank lending as an alternative to integration and the role of possibly insured deposit funding. Amongst others, it...

Our paper evaluates recent regulatory proposals mandating the deferral of bonus payments and claw-back clauses in the financial sector. We study a broadly applicable principal agent setting, in which the agent exerts effort for an immediately observable task (acquisition) and a task for which...

This paper provides a complete characterization of optimal contracts in principal-agent settings where the agent's action has persistent effects. We model general information environments via the stochastic process of the likelihood-ratio. The martingale property of this performance metric...

This paper characterizes optimal compensation contracts in principal-agent settings where the agent's action has persistent effects. As additional informative signals arrive over time, deferred compensation has the benefit of exploiting better performance measurement which, for any information...

This paper characterizes optimal compensation contracts in principal-agent settings where the agent's action has persistent effects. As additional informative signals arrive over time, deferred compensation has the benefit of exploiting better performance measurement which, for any information...

Agencies around the world are in the process of developing taxonomies and standards for sustainable (or ESG) investment products. A key assumption in our model is that of non-consequentialist private investors (households) who derive a "warm glow" decisional utility when purchasing an investment...