In this paper we analyze a principal's optimal monitoring strategies in a team environment. In doing so we study the interaction between formal monitoring and informal (peer) monitoring. We show that if the technology satisfies complementarity, peer monitoring substitutes for the principal's...

We consider school competition in a Bayesian persuasion framework. Schools compete to place graduates by investing in education quality and by choosing grading policies. In equilibrium, schools strategically adopt grading policies that do not perfectly reveal graduate ability to evaluators. We...

This paper addresses the problem of sequentially allocating time sensitive goods, or one-period leases on a durable good, among agents who compete through time and learn about the common component of their valuation privately through experience. I show that efficiency is unattainable, and I...

We study mechanisms for selecting up to m out of n projects. Project managers' private information on quality is elicited through transfers. Under limited liability, the optimal mechanism selects projects that maximize some function of the project's observable and reported characteristics. When...

We study how competition affects market transparency, taking into account that comparative performance is assessed via tournaments and contests. Extending Dye (1985) to a multi-firm setting in which top performers are rewarded, we show that increased competition usually makes disclosure less...

I present a simple framework for modeling two-firm market competition when consumer choice is "frame-dependent", and firms use costless "marketing messages" to influence the consumer's frame. This framework embeds several recent models in the "behavioral industrial organization" literature. I...

In the population of over 1.7 million Texan sales-tax collecting business establishments, we show that greater distance to owner headquarters is associated with shorter establishment longevity. For the lodging industry, where we have revenue data, increases in distance to headquarters due to...

The focus of this paper is the endogenous formation of peer groups. In our model agents choose peers before making contributions to public projects, and they differ in how much they value one project relative to another. Thus, the group's preference composition affects the type of contributions...

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...

Many real-life applications of house allocation problems are dynamic. For example, each year college freshmen move in and seniors move out of on-campus housing. Each student stays on campus for only a few years. A student is a "newcomer" in the beginning and then becomes an "existing tenant"....