We propose a theory explaining the shape of contracts between local governments and the contractors they hire to run public facilities on their behalf. Governments are privately informed over the quality of the facility and risk-averse while risk-neutral contractors are subject to a moral hazard...

We examine a principal-agent model with moral hazard in which the technology – the vector of probability distributions from the agent’s actions to the possible outcomes – is initially unknown. A signal correlated with the technology is observed after the principal and agent agree to the...

In a principal-agent environment with moral hazard and symmetric information, having or acquiring a more informative technology lowers the cost to implement a given action. Contracting may occur after or before the principal learns her technology. We show that when the principal has or will...