We present an overview of models of long-term self-enforcing labor contracts in which risk sharing is the dominant motive for contractual solutions. A base model is developed which is sufficiently general to encompass the two-agent problem central to most of the literature, including variable...

This paper analyses a model in which firms cannot pay discriminate based on year of entry to a firm, and develops an equilibrium model of wage dynamics and unemployment. The model is developed under the assumption of worker mobility, so that workers can costlessly quit jobs at any time. Firms on...

This paper considers a two-period optimal contracting model in which firms make new hires in the second period subject to the constraint that they cannot pay discriminate either against or in favour of the new hires. Under an assumption on the information available to workers, it is shown that...

We adapt the models of Menzio and Moen (2010) and Snell and Thomas (2010) to consider a labour market in which firms can commit to wage contracts but cannot commit not to replace incumbent workers. Workers are risk averse, so that there exists an incentive for firms to smooth wages. Real wages...

We provide a solution to the free-rider problem in the provision of a public good. To this end we define a biased indirect contribution game which provides the efficient amount of the public good in non-cooperative Nash equilibrium. No confiscatory taxes or other means of coercion are used. We...

An auction is viewed as a process that in equilibrium generates a binary lottery for each bidder, which the bidder "buys" with his bid. This view allows for a simple way to consistently assess differences in bidding behavior over different bidders and different auctions. E.g. all auctions...

This paper provides existence and characterization of the optimal contest success function under the condition that the objective of the contest designer is total effort maximization among n heterogeneous players. Heterogeneity of players makes active participation of a player in equilibrium...

We analyze group contests for public goods by applying the solution concept of an evolutionary stable strategy (ESS). We show that a global ESS cannot exist, because a mutant free-rider can always invade group behavior successfully. There does exist, however, a unique local ESS, which we...

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Tullock’s analysis of rent-seeking is reconsidered from an evolutionary point of view. We show that evolutionarily stable behavior in a rent-seeking contest differs from efficient rent-seeking behavior in a Nash equilibrium. We explore that implications of evolutionary stability for...