This paper analyzes the impact of labor market competition and skill-biased technical change on the structure of compensation. The model combines multitasking and screening, embedded into a Hotelling-like framework. Competition for the most talented workers leads to an escalating reliance on...

Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976) show that there need not exist a competitive equilibrium in markets with adverse selection. Building on their framework we demonstrate that externalities between agents - an agent's utility upon accepting a contract depends on the average type attracted by the...

We provide a new rationale for the use of discretionary bonuses. In a setting with unknown match qualities between a worker and a firm and subjective evaluations by the principal, bonuses are useful in order to make the feedback from the firm to the workers credible. This way workers in good...

We develop a stylized principal-agent model with moral hazard and adverse selection to provide a unified framework for understanding some of the most salient features of the recent physician payment reform in Ontario and its impact on physician behavior. These features include: (1) physicians...

The issue of whether unemployment benefits should increase or decrease over the unemployment spell is analyzed in a tractable model allowing moral hazard, adverse selection and hidden saving. Analytical results show that when the search productivity of unemployed is constant over the...

This study models producer protection legislation that would grant growers the right to claim damages (PPLD) if their contracts are prematurely terminated. In the absence of contracting frictions that prevent contractors from redesigning contracts to accommodate exogenous policy changes, PPLD...

We characterize optimal incentive contracts in a moral hazard framework extended in two directions. First, after effort provision, the agent is free to leave and pursue some ex-post outside option. Second, the value of this outside option is increasing in effort, and hence endogenous. Optimal...

Incentives often fail in inducing economic agents to engage in a desirable activity; implementability is restricted. What restricts implementability? When does re-organization help to overcome this restriction? This paper shows that any restriction of implementability is caused by an...