This project analyzes how a principal can motivate an agent to conserve rather than exploit a depletable resource. This dynamic problem is relevant for tropical deforestation as well as for other environmental problems. It is shown that the smaller is the agent's discount factor (e.g., because...

We examine how long-term life insurance contracts can be designed to incorporate uncertain future bequest needs. An individual who buys a life insurance contract early in life is often uncertain about the future financial needs of his or her family, in the event of an untimely death. Ideally,...

This paper investigates the domestic government's antidumping duty choice in an asymmetric information framework where the foreign firm's cost is observed by the domestic firm, but not by the government. To induce truthful revelation, the government can design a tariff schedule, contingent on...

In a standard adverse selection world, asymmetric information about product quality leads to quality deterioration in the market. Suppose that a higher investment level makes the realization of high quality more likely. Then, if consumers observe the investment (but not the realization of...

We show that a minimum wage introduced in the presence of asymmetric information about worker productivities will lead to lower unemployment levels than predicted by the standard labour market model with heterogeneous labour and symmetric information.

We model non-binding retail-price recommendations (RPRs) as a communication device facilitating coordination in vertical supply relations. Assuming both repeated vertical trade and asymmetric information about production costs, we show that RPRs may be part of a relational contract,...

We study a general static noisy rational expectations model, where investors have private information about asset payoffs, with common and private components, and about their own exposure to an aggregate risk factor, and derive conditions for existence and uniqueness (or multiplicity) of...

Who does, and who should initiate costly certification by a third party under asymmetric quality information, the buyer or the seller? Our answer - the seller - follows from a nontrivial analysis revealing a clear intuition. Buyer-induced certification acts as an inspection device,...

Private provision of public goods often takes place as a war of attrition: individuals wait until someone else volunteers and provides the good. After a certain time period, however, one individual may be randomly selected. If the individuals are uncertain about their cost of provision, but can...

Credence goods are characterized by informational asymmetries between sellers and consumers that invite fraudulent behavior by sellers. This paper presents the results of a natural field experiment on taxi rides in Athens, Greece, set up to measure different types of fraud and to examine the...