The decision to cooperate within R&D joint ventures is often based on `expert advice.' Such advice typically originates in a due diligence process, which assesses the R&D joint venture's profitability, for example, by appraising the achievability of synergies. We show that if the experts who...

This study analyzes a continuous-time N-agent Brownian hidden-action model with exponential utilities, in which agents' actions jointly determine the mean and the variance of the outcome process. In order to give a theoretical justi¯cation for the use of linear contracts, as in Holmstrom and...

This paper compares profit sharing and debt contracts in presence of moral hazard. Its originality relatively to the existing studies consists in performing the comparison between the two contracts in a more general context. Firstly, the internal funds of the agent (entrepreneur) are enabled to...

This paper analyses the feasibility of profit and loss sharing (PLS) contracts in presence of moral hazard between the principal (financier) and the agent (entrepreneur). It shows that introducing a rule for sharing profits and losses in contingence with the outcome of the entrepreneur’s...

This paper considers a principal-agent relationship and explores the incentive provision when the agent's performance cannot be verified. It contrasts two alternatives for the principal to provide incentives: (i) to subjectively evaluate the agent's performance; and (ii), to delegate this task to...

This paper discusses the design of a novel multi-dimensional mechanism which allows a principal to procure a single project or an item from multiple suppliers through a two-step payment. The suppliers are capable of producing different qualities at costs which cannot exceed a certain value and...

This paper examines uberrimae fidei (utmost good faith) with adverse selection in an insurance market. If consumers know their risk type (they know their expected loss), and if they understand the concept of uberrimae fidei, adverse selection is completely eliminated. However, if uberrimae fidei...

This paper is a theoretical introduction to modern governance of universities in developing countries. Indeed, adopting the approach of the paradigm of the theory of incentives Laffont and Tirole (1993), this paper discusses the effects of the presence of information asymmetry between the State...

Principal-agent models in which the agent has access to private information before a contract is signed are a cornerstone of contract theory. We have conducted an experiment with 720 participants to explore whether the theoretical insights are reflected by the behavior of subjects in the...

A principal wants two sequential tasks to be performed by wealth-constrained agents. When the tasks are conflicting (i.e., when a first-stage success makes second-stage effort less effective), the principal's profit-maximizing way to induce high efforts is to hire one agent to perform both...