Company financial reports are likely to be systematically biased. In this paper, we extend the Duffie and Lando (2001) model with a skewness correction which can account for both random and directional components of reporting noise.

We consider a cheap talk model with the sender’s exit option. We show that in the case of discrete action space, it can be the case that there exists an informative equilibrium if and only if the sender’s bias is sufficiently small or sufficiently large. The latter case is sharply...

In a principal-agent relationship under limited liability, the agent in general receives the full share of revenue. We show that when the agent exerts effort in multiple tasks, the effort substitution effect helps explain the existence of share contracts even under limited liability.

A new theory of loss-leader pricing is provided in which firms advertise low (below cost) prices for certain goods to signal that their other unadvertised (substitute) goods are not priced too high. The theory is applied to the pricing of upgrades. The results contrast with most existing...

I consider repeated games with local monitoring: each player observes his neighbors’ moves only. Hence, monitoring is private and imperfect. Communication is private: each player can send different (costless) messages to different players. The solution concept is perfect Bayesian equilibrium....

In a Bertrand-oligopoly experiment, firms choose whether or not to engage in cartel-like communication and, if so, they may get fined by a cartel authority. We find that the four-firm industries form cartels more often than the duopolies because they gain less from a hysteresis effect after...

We resolve the non-existence pathologies of dynamic rational expectations equilibria attributed to signal extraction from endogenous variables first discovered by Futia (1981). Non-existence is overturned once it is recognized that rational agents take into account the structure of the model...

Consider a non-governmental organization (NGO) that can invest in a public good. Should the government or the NGO own the public project? In an incomplete contracting framework with split-the-difference bargaining, Besley and Ghatak (2001) argue that the party who values the public good most...

We introduce location choice for the public good in the property rights framework. We find that it can be optimal to separate location from ownership.

When employers can incur losses from the labor relationship in a gift exchange game, they offer lower wages on average than in a no-loss relationship. Taking employers’ risk of losing money into account, employees exert more effort per wage unit.