We study financial contracting when both an entrepreneur's investment and the resulting revenue are unobservable to an outside investor. We show that a debt contract is always optimal; repayment is induced by a liquidation threat that increases with the extent of default. Moreover, when the...

If managers and their subordinates have the same basic qualifications, organizations can benefit from replacing unproductive superiors with more productive subordinates. This threat may induce superiors to deliberately recruit unproductive subordinates, or abuse their personnel authority in...

I examine optimal incentives and performance measurement in a model where an agent has specific knowledge (in the sense of Jensen and Meckling) about the consequences of his actions for the principal. Contracts can be based both on input measures related to the agent's actions and an output...