We introduce learning based on genetic algorithms in a principal-agent model of optimal contracting under moral hazard. Applications of this setting abound in finance (credit under moral hazard), public finance (optimal taxation, information-constrained insurance), development (sharecropping),...

A fundamental non-stationarity of infinitely repeated games as usually studied is that the length of the history of play gets longer each period. With private actions (and mixed strategies) or private signals, this introduces a particular difficulty with common solution concepts such as...

We show that the ways incentives can be provided during dynamic interaction depend very crucially on the manner in which players learn information. This conclusion is established in a general stationary environment with noisy public monitoring and frequent actions. The monitoring process can be...

This paper studies the problem of monitoring the monitor in a model of money and banking with aggregate uncertainty. It shows that when inside money is required as a means of bank loan repayment, a market of inside money is entailed at the repayment stage and generates information-revealing...

This paper studies Holmstrom's [1999] seminal model of career concerns, but considers that a small change in the beliefs about the agent's future productivity may imply a large change in his compensation---because, for example, the agent may be fired or promoted. This allows us to study how the...

We analyze a version of Akerlof's market for lemons in which a sequence of buyers make offers to a long-lived seller endowed with a single unit for sale. We consider both the case in which previous offers are observable and the case in which they are not. When offers are observable, trade may...

The covariance of sectoral and aggregate U.S. output is significantly higher than the covariance of sectoral and aggregate productivity. Explaining this industry comovement is a challenge for business cycle theory. We propose an explanation based on costly information about productivity (TFP)....

I consider a version of the chain store game where the incumbent firm’s type evolves according to a Markov process with two states: a “tough†type who always fights entry, and a “weak†type who prefers to accommodate. There exists a minimal level of persistence...

This paper shows how expectations-driven contagion of currency crises can arise even if the currency market has a unique equilibrium when viewed in isolation. The model of Morris and Shin (1998) is extended to allow speculators to trade in a second currency market. If speculators believe that a...