This paper shows that a simple two-stage voting mechanism may implement a constrained optimal state dependent decision about the size of the fiscal deficit. I consider a setup with strategic fiscal deficits à la Tabellini and Alesina (1990). Three groups of voters are informed about the...

When an individual performs several tasks simultaneously, resources must be allocated to different brain systems to produce energy for neurons to fire. Following the evidence from neuroscience, we model the brain as an organization in which a coordinator allocates limited resources to the brain...

We re-visit the single-agent mechanism design problem with quasilinear preferences, but we assume that the principal knowingly operates on the basis of only an approximate type space rather than the (potentially complex) truth. We propose a two-step scheme, the profit-participation mechanism,...

Prizes are often awarded to encourage research on products deemed of vital importance. We present a mechanism which can, in situations where the innovators are better informed about the difficulty of the research, tailor perfectly the expected reward to the expected research costs. The idea is...

We study interventions to restore efficient lending and investment when financial markets fail because of adverse selection. We solve a design problem where the decision to participate in a program offered by the government can be a signal for private information. We charac terize optimal...

Treating control as an asset that can be bought and sold, we introduce a model of the simultaneous and separable trading of ownership and control in a private information setting. The model provides a novel explanation for the prevalence and persistence of the separation of ownership from...

When agents hold non-common priors over an unverifiable state of nature which affects the outcome of their future actions, they have an incentive to bet on the outcome. We pose the following question: what are the limits on the agents' ability to realize gains from speculative bets when their...

We analyse the optimal delegation of decision rights by a uninformed principal to an informed but biased agent. When the principal cannot use message-contingent transfers, she offers the agent a set of decisions from which he can choose his preferred one. We fully characterize the optimal...

We develop general recursive methods to solve for optimal contracts in dynamic principal-agent environments with hidden states and hidden actions. In our baseline model, the principal observes nothing other than transfers. Nevertheless, optimal incentive-constrained insurance can be attained. We...

Patents are a useful but imperfect reward for innovation. In sectors like pharmaceuticals, where monopoly distortions seem particularly severe, there is growing international political pressure to identify alternatives to patents that could lower prices. Innovation prizes and other non-patent...