We use a panel cointegration model with multiple time- varying individual effects to control for the enigmatic missing factors in the credit spread puzzle. Our model specification enables as to capture the unobserved dynamics of the systematic risk premia in the bond market. In order to estimate...

It is commonly assumed in private value auctions that bidders have no information about the realization of the other bidders' valuations. Nevertheless, an informative public signal about the realization may be released by a bidder while he learns his own valuation. Using a simple discrete...

In innovation contests, the progress of the competing firms in the innovation process is usually their private information. We analyze an innovation contest in which research firms have a stochastic technology to develop innovations at a fixed cost, but their progress is publicly announced. We...

In multi-attribute procurement auctions with multiple objects, the auctioneer may care about the interplay of quality attributes that do not belong to the same item – like each item’s delivery time, if all items are needed at once. This can in?uence the performance of the auction mechanism....

We consider a two-stage principal-agent model with limited liability in which a CEO is employed as agent to gather information about suitable merger targets and to manage the merged corporation in case of an acquisition. Our results show that the CEO systematically recommends targets with low...

I consider a situation, where the agent can acquire payoff-relevant information either before or after the contract is signed. To raise efficiency, the principal might solicit information; to retain all surplus, however, she must prevent precontractual information gathering. The following class...

This paper analyzes truthtelling incentives in pre-vote communication in heterogeneous committees. We generalize the classical Condorcet jury model by introducing a new informational structure that captures consistency of information. In contrast to the impossibility result shown by Coughlan...

It is well-known that, in static models, minimum wages generate positive worker rents and, consequently, ine?ciently low effort. We show that this result does not necessarily extend to a dynamic context. The reason is that, in repeated employment relationships, ?rms may exploit workers’ future...

In a general setting of private information, the possibility (impossibility) theorem is said to be valid, if a balanced and ex post efficient mechanism exists (does not exist) which agents voluntarily participate at. Possibility and impossibility results are called robust if they hold for all...

Firms face the problem of choosing a debt maturity structure when financing an investment project. In addition, they have to decide which financing source to take. The aim of this article is firstly to give an explanation for the differing maturity choices by firms. As is shown below, the...