This Paper examines optimal incentives and performance measurement in a setting where an agent has specific knowledge about the consequences of their actions for the principal. I study incentive contracts in which the agent’s compensation can be based on both ‘input’ measures closely...

We examine a simple measure of portfolio performance based on prospect theory, which captures not only risk and return but also reflects differential aversion to upside and downside risk. The measure we propose is a ratio of gains to losses, with the gains and losses weighted (if desired) to...

An important lesson from the incentive literature is that explicit incentives may elicit dysfunctional and unintended responses, also known as gaming responses. The existence of these responses, however, is difficult to demonstrate in practice because this behaviour is typically hidden from the...

Non-contractible quality dimensions are at risk of degradation when the provision of public services is privatized. However, privatization may increase quality by fostering performance-improving innovation, particularly if combined with increased competition. We assemble a large data set on...

Using a data set containing 364 UK pension funds’ asset holdings, this paper provides a systematic investigation of the performance of managed portfolios across multiple asset classes. We find surprisingly little cross-sectional variation in the ex-post average performance across the UK...

Using data from a large, U.S. federal job training program, we investigate whether enrolment incentives that exogenously vary the ‘shadow prices’ for serving different demographic subgroups of clients influence case workers’ intake decisions. We show that case workers enroll more clients...

We study the contribution of health-related behaviors to the health-education gradient by distinguishing between short-run and long-run mediating effects: while in the former only current or lagged behaviors are taken into account, in the latter we consider the entire history of behaviors. We...

Does fiscal consolidation lead to social unrest? Using cross-country evidence for the period 1919 to 2008, we examine the extent to which societies become unstable after budget cuts. The results show a clear correlation between fiscal retrenchment and instability. We test if the relationship...