Why do larger corporations have more layers in their hierarchy? My contention in this paper is that hierarchies arise because economic agents have limited ability to anticipate and ascertain every possible contingency they are faced with. As a result, the complete contract may become too complex...

An extensive academic literature exists on the optimal compensation of top executives. A less-developed literature pertains to the optimal compensation of middle management personnel. The goal of this paper is to address that concern. The setup we use is that of a firm s president (the...

Nous étudions, dans cet article, le rôle des allocations chômage dans la détermination de la nature des emplois offerts. Nous montrons qu'un système d'indemnisation du chômage généreux, en provoquant une accentuation de la sélectivité des agents, affecte les caractéristiques des...

Economists have greatly criticized regulations that impose uniform environmental standards on plants which may differ in terms both of their marginal abatement cost and marginal damage functions. Such a critic ignores however that the implementation of the standards may vary significantly across...