The authors reexamine the basic investment problem of deciding when to incur a sunk cost to obtain a stochastically fluctuating benefit. The optimal investment rule satisfies a trade-off between a larger versus a later net benefit; they show that this trade-off is closely analogous to the...

Given a policy rule of the common central bank of a monetary union, member countries with different preferences about inflation and facing asymmetric shocks have different incentives to secure political intervention in the bank's operation and achieve the temporary benefit of surprise inflation....

We extend the theory of common agency to the situation where the principals' payoffs are affected by their "ex ante" expectations of the agent's "ex post" choice. We show how the usual truthful schedules must be modified to account for the rational expectations constraint. We apply the model to...