The informativeness principle demonstrates qualitative benefits to increasing signal precision. However, it is difficult to quantify these benefits -- and compare them against the costs of precision -- since we typically cannot solve for the optimal contract and analyze how it changes with...

This paper shows that the informativeness principle does not automatically extend to settings with limited liability. Even if a signal is informative about effort, it may have no value for contracting. An agent with limited liability is paid zero for certain output realizations. Thus, even if...

We propose a model of narrow framing in insurance and test it using data from a new module we designed and fielded in the Health and Retirement Study. We show that respondents subject to narrow framing are substantially less likely to buy long-term care insurance than average. This effect is...

This paper documents and explains the existence of grade non-disclosure policies in Masters in Business Administration programs, why these policies are concentrated in highly-ranked programs, and why these policies are not prevalent in most other professional degree programs. Related policies,...

Life insurance is a large yet poorly understood industry. A final death benefit is not paid for a majority of policies. Insurers make money on customers that lapse their policies and lose money on customers that keep their coverage. Policy loads are inverted relative to the dynamic pattern...

This paper shows that the informativeness principle, as originally formulated by Holmstrom (1979), does not hold if the first-order approach is invalid. We introduce a "generalized informativeness principle" that takes into account non-local incentive constraints and holds generically, even...