This survey reviews how a recent political economy literature helps explaining variation in governance, competition, funding composition and access to credit. Evolution in political institutions can account for financial evolution, and appear critical to explain rapid changes in financial...

In this paper, I study the wage a firm sets to attract high abilityworkers (hipo's) in situationsof unemployment. I show that the higher unemployment, the larger afirm's incentives to sorthigh and low ability workers. Moreover, workers will signal their(high) ability in situationsof (high)...

The paper studies information processing imperfections in a fully rational decision-making network. It is shown that imperfect information transmission and imperfect information acquisition in a multi-stage selection game yield information overload. The paper analyses the mechanisms responsible...

Using a formal principal-agent model, I investigate the relation between monetary gift-exchange and incentive pay, while allowing for worker heterogeneity. I assume that some agents care more for their principal when they are convinced that the principal cares for them. Principals can signal...

This discussion paper led to a publication in the <I>Journal of Risk and Insurance</I>. Vol. 72(1), pages 45-59.<P> We take a dynamic perspective on insurance markets under adverseselection and study a generalized Rothschildand Stiglitz model where agents may differ with respect to theaccidental...</p></i>