This paper presents the results of a laboratory experiment in which workers perform a real-effort task and supervisors report the workers’ performance to the experimenter. The report is non verifiable and determines the earnings of both the supervisor and the worker. We find that not all the...

The labor economics literature has shown that the “efficient bargaining” model, in which wage and employment are negotiated simultaneously, is less frequently used on unionized markets than the less efficient “right-to-manage” model, in which wage is determined via bargaining and...

Male and female choices differ in many economic situations, e.g., on the labor market. This paper considers whether such differences are driven by different attitudes towards competition. In our experiment subjects choose between a tournament and a piece-rate pay scheme before performing a real...

We devise an experiment to explore the effect of different degrees of competition on optimal contracts in a hidden-information context. In our benchmark case, each principal is matched with one agent of unknown type. In our second treatment, a principal can select one of three agents, while in a...

In a real option model, we show that the standard analysis of vertical relationships transposes directly to investment timing. Thus, when a firm undertaking a project requires an outside supplier (e.g., an equipment manufacturer) to provide it with a discrete input to serve a growing but...

We characterize sequential (preemption) and simultaneous (coordination) equilibria, as well as joint-value maximizing (cooperation) solutions, in a model of investment timing allowing for externalities in both flow pro…ts and investment costs. For two ex-ante symmetric …rms, either...

This paper investigates the combined impact of a first-mover advantage and of firmsí limited mobility on the equilibrium outcomes of a continuous-time model adapted from by Boyer, Lasserre, and Moreaux (2007). Two firms face market development uncertainty and may enter by investing in lumpy...

This note further characterizes the tacit collusion equilibria in the investment timing game of Boyer, Lasserre and Moreaux [1]. Tacit collusion equilibria may or may not exist, and when they do may involve either finite time investments (type 1) or infinite delay (type 2). The relationship...