The paper compares conventional and final-offer arbitration. One party is supposed to make a payment to another party, whose amount depends on a state. Under one scenario, parties obtain signals about the state, which cannot be recognized by the opponents. If the arbitrator's ability of...

We introduce a model in which firms trade goods via bilateral contracts which specify a buyer, a seller, and the terms of the exchange. This setting subsumes (many-to-many) matching with contracts, as well as supply chain matching. When firms' relationships do not exhibit a supply chain...

We study the optimal design of trade agreements when governments can renegotiate after the resolution of uncertainty but compensation between them is inefficient. In equilibrium, renegotiation always results in trade liberalization, not protection. The optimal contract may be a "property rule"...

We introduce new revelation mechanisms for simultaneous common agency games which, although they do not always permit a complete equilibrium characterization, do facilitate the characterization of the equilibrium outcomes that are typically of interest in applications. We then show how these...

We explore the strategic value of quantity forcing contracts in a manufacturer-retailer environment under both adverse selection and moral hazard. Manufacturers dealing with (exclusive) competing retailers may prefer to leave contracts silent on retail prices, whenever other aspects of the...

Trade in securities markets is conducted by agents acting for principals, using "mark-to-market" contracts whereby performance is assessed using security market prices. We endogenize contract choices, information production, informed trading, and security price informativeness. But there is a...

How do price commitments impact the amount of information firms acquire about potential customers? We examine this question in the context of a competitive market where firms search for information that may disqualify applicants. Contracts are incomplete because the amount of information...

We model situations in which a principal offers contracts to a group of agents to participate in a project. Agents' benefits from participation depend on the identity of other participating agents. We assume heterogeneous externalities and characterize the optimal contracting scheme. We show...

This paper experimentally tests the predictions of a principal-agent model in which the agent has biased beliefs about his ability. Overconfident workers are found to earn lower wages than underconfident ones because they overestimate their expected payoff, and principals adjust their offers...

We study optimal contracting in team settings where agents have many opportunities to shirk, task-level monitoring is needed to provide useful incentives, and it is difficult to write individual performance into formal contracts. Incentives are provided informally, using wasteful sanctions like...