A lecture to graduate students of the joint Economics Ph.D. program of the Department of Economics, University of Bergen, and the Norwegian School of Economics.

We study subgame-perfect equilibria of the classical quality-price, multistage game of vertical product differentiation. Each firm can choose the levels of an arbitrary number of qualities. Consumers' valuations are drawn from independent and general distributions. The unit cost of production is...

A principal requires a manager for production. He can use an internal manager, or contracts with an external manger. In each case, the manager obtains experience benefits from production. When the principal uses an internal manager, both parties share cost information. When the principal...

We model physicians as health care professionals who care about their services and monetary rewards. These preferences are heterogeneous. Different physicians trade off the monetary and service motives differently, and therefore respond differently to incentive schemes. Our model is set up for...

A risk-averse consumer purchases an insurance policy, if she suffers a loss, she may receive services from a provider to recover some of the loss. Only the consumer and the provider know if the loss has actually occurred. The providers behaviour is uncertain. With some positive probability, the...

A risk-averse consumer purchases an insurance policy; if she suffers a loss, she may receive services from a provider to recover some of the loss. Only the consumer and the provider know if the loss has actually occurred. The provider's behavior is uncertain. With some positive probability, the...

A lecture to graduate students of the joint Economics Ph.D. program of the Department of Economics, University of Bergen, and the Norwegian School of Economics.

This paper presents a signaling explanation for unemployment. The basic idea is that employment at an unskilled job may be regarded as a bad signal. Therefore, good workers who are more likely to qualify for employment at a skilled job in the future are better off being unemployed than accepting...