Can machine learning support better governance? In the context of Brazilian municipalities, 2001-2012, we have access to detailed accounts of local budgets and audit data on the associated fiscal corruption. Using the budget variables as predictors, we train a tree-based gradient-boosted...

This paper studies how the swiftness and delay of punishment affect behavior. Using rich administrative data from automated speed cameras, we exploit two (quasi-)experimental sources of variation in the time between a speeding offense and the sending of a ticket. At the launch of the speed...

We conducted an experiment with 182 inmates from a maximum security prison to analyze the impact of criminal identity salience on cheating. The results show that inmates cheat more when we exogenously render their criminal identity more salient. This effect is specific to individuals who have a...

Empirically, compensation systems generate substantial effort despite weak monetary incentives. We consider reciprocal motivations as a source of incentives. We solve for the optimal contract in the basic principal-agent problem and show that reciprocal motivations and explicit performance-based...

We analyze the optimal ownership, delegation and compensation structures when a manager is hired to run a firm and to gather information on investment projects. The initial owner has two tasks: monitoring the manager and supervising project choice. Optimality would require a large ownership...

Inspired by a recent observation about an online retail company, this paper explains why a firm may find it optimal to offer an exit bonus to recent hires so as to induce self-selection. We study a double adverse selection problem, in which the principal can neither observe agents’ commitment...

In the middle of the nineties, the sharp increase in globalisation and the last privatization wave have promoted the shaping of a market for executives in France. Characteristics of this market are estimated for France and a competitive model is simulated in order to assess to what extend such a...

Sophisticated collusive compensation schemes such as assigning future market shares or direct transfers are frequently observed in detected cartels. We show formally why these schemes are useful for dampening deviation incentives when colluding firms are temporary asymmetric. The relative...

We study the design of a fair family policy in an economy where parenthood is regarded either as desirable or as undesirable, and where there is imperfect fertility control, leading to involuntary childlessness/parenthood. Using an equivalent consumption approach in the consumption-fertility...