Final goods producers, who may be intrinsically honest (a behavioral type) or opportunistic (strategic), play a repeated game of imperfect information with suppliers of an input of variable (and non-verifiable) quality. Returns to cheating are increasing in the proportion of intrinsically honest...

We study the role of information exchange, leadership and coordination in team or partnership structures. For this purpose, we view individuals jointly engaging in productive processes -- a 'team' -- as endowed with individual and privately held information on the joint production process. Once...

We argue that the common law standard of proof, given the rules of evidence, does not minimize expected error as usually argued in the legal literature, but may well be efficient from the standpoint of providing maximal incentives for socially desirable behavior. By contrast, civil law's higher...

We analyze the design of legal principles and procedures for court decision-making in civil litigation. The objective is the provision of appropriate incentives for potential tort-feasors to exert care, when evidence about care is imperfect and may be distorted by the parties. Efficiency is...

We consider situations where legal liability yields insufficient incentives for socially efficient behavior, e.g., individuals who cause harm are not always sued or are unable to pay fully for harm done. Some individuals nevertheless behave efficiently because of intrinsic prosocial concerns....

This paper assesses the merits of countercyclical bank balance sheet regulation for the stabilization of financial and economic cycles and examines its interaction with monetary policy. The framework used is a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with banks and bank capital, in which...