We consider a game between a principal, an agent, and a monitor in which the principal would like to rely on messages by the monitor to target intervention against a misbehaving agent. The difficulty is that the agent can credibly threaten to retaliate against likely whistleblowers in the event...

We examine misconduct in credence good markets with price taking experts. We propose a market-level model in which price-taking experts extract surplus based on the value of their firm's brand and their own skill. We test the predictions of the model using sales complaint data for exclusive and...

Voters often dismantle constitutional checks and balances on the executive. If such checks and balances limit presidential abuses of power and rents, why do voters support their removal? We argue that by reducing politician rents, checks and balances also make it cheaper to bribe or influence...

Biotechnology companies rely heavily on alliances with pharmaceutical companies to finance their research and development expenditures, and pharmaceutical firms rely heavily on alliances to supplement their internal research and development. Previous studies suggest that asymmetric information...

Motivated by a characteristic way in which firms in developed countries make their decisions regarding cooperation with potential partners from less developed countries, we design a simple model of a DC firm's search for an LDC partner/supplier and the subsequent relationship between the two...

This paper compares the responses of intra- and extra-firm trade to exchange rate changes. It does so both to inform the debate on whether these responses are qualitatively different and to improve understanding of the microfoundations of features of trade behavior such as long adjustment lags,...

This paper analyzes the determinants of partial ownership of the foreign affiliates of U.S. multinational firms and, in particular, why partial ownership has declined markedly over the last 20 years. The evidence indicates that whole ownership is most common when firms coordinate integrated...

Traditional analyses of standards in international trade identify standards as government regulations and investigate the potential for distortion of trade flows. In reality, however, private industry groups exercise critical influence on the determination of technical standards. The composition...

We consider the multinational firm's decision on whether to enter a new market immediately via direct investment or to contract initially with a local agent and (possibly) invest later. Use of a local agent allows the multinational to avoid costly mistakes by finding out if the market is large...