We show that the observation by a principal of the effectiveness of an expert‘s action could induce the expert to lie, damaging the principal. A career-minded expert receives a private-informative signal about the real state of the world, and then he takes an action that can match or not the...

We analyze situations in which an expert is biased toward some decision but cares also about his reputation in the market for experts. The information the expert reveals decreases as his bias moves toward stronger preference for the status quo. We show that it is optimal to publicly disclose...

We analyze how financial experts influence asset prices in a sequential trading model. In the model, an expert of unknown ability sends a report about asset values to traders, who then observe a signal about the expert's type. All information about the expert's ability is private to traders and...

This paper studies the interaction of information disclosure and reputational concerns in certification markets. We argue that by revealing less precise information a certifier reduces the threat of capture. Opaque disclosure rules may reduce profits but also constrain feasible bribes. For large...

Is the reputation of a firm tradable when the change in ownership is observable? We consider a competitive market in which a share of owners must retire in each period. New owners bid for the firms that are for sale. Customers learn the owner’s type, which reflects the quality of the good...

When Court enforcement is excessively difficult or costly, agents are often able to create «endogenous enforcement mechanisms», that is, to design agreements so that each party finds it optimal to carry them out (self-enforcing implicit contracts), thanks to the threat of sanctions affecting...

In this paper, we develop a model of a decision maker using an expert to obtain information. The expert is biased toward some favoured decision but cares also about its reputation on the market for experts. We then analyse the corresponding decision game depending on the nature of the...

We show that political booms, measured by the rise in governments’ popularity, predict financial crises above and beyond other better-known early warning indicators, such as credit booms. This predictive power, however, only holds in emerging economies. We show that governments in emerging...