We characterize the set of second-best optimal "menus" of student-loan contracts in a simple economy with risky labour-market outcomes, adverse selection, moral hazard and risk aversion. The model combines student loans with an elementary optimal income-tax problem. The second-best optima...

Empirical studies show that most franchise chains use dual distribution - or a plural form franchise system - characterized by the coexistence of franchised units and company- owned retail units in the same distribution network. Therefore, this paper focuses on dual distribution and considers...

The experience of the 2007-09 financial crisis has showed that the bank capital regulation in place was inadequate to deal with "manufacturing" tail risk in the financial sector. This paper proposes an incentive-based design of bank capital regulation aimed at efficiently dealing with tail risk...

Early regulator interventions into problem banks is one of the key suggestions of Basel II. However, no guidance is given on their design. To fill this gap, we outline an incentive-based preventive supervision strategy that eliminates bad asset management in banks. Two supervision techniques are...

This paper studies the optimal unemployment insurance for older workers in a repeated principal-agent model, where the search intensity of risk-averse workers (the agents) is not observed by the risk-neutral insurance agency (the principal). When unemployment benefits are the only available...

At the end of working life, as well as reducing unemployment benefits, the unemployment-insurance agency could apply pension tax instead of wage tax. First, the pension tax provides greater incentives as the value of re-employment is tax-free. Second, the short job duration before retirement...

We study an economy where intermediaries compete over contracts in a nonexclusive insurance market affected by moral hazard. Our setting is the same as that developed in Bisin and Guaitoli [2004]. The present note provides a counterexample to the set of necessary conditions for high effort...

We consider a competitive insurance market in which agents can privately enter into multicontractual insurance relationships and undertake hidden actions. We study the existence of linear equilibria when insurance companies do not have any restriction on their pricing rules. We provide...

This paper studies the optimal unemployment insurance for older workers in a repeated principal-agent model, where the search intensity of risk-averse workers (the agents) is not observed by the risk-neutral insurance agency (the principal). When unemployment benefits are the only available...