We analyze a rational-expectations model of price formation in an intermediate-good market under uncertainty. There is a continuum of firms, each consisting of a party who can reduce production cost and a party who can discover information about demand. Both parties can make specific investments...

The authors develop a dynamic model of learning about worker ability in a competitive labor market. The model produces three testable implications regarding wage dynamics: (1) although the role of schooling in the labor market's inference process declines as performance observations accumulate,...

Relational contracts-informal agreements sustained by the value of future relationships-are prevalent within and between firms. We develop repeatedgame models showing why and how relational contracts within firms (vertical integration) differ from those between (nonintegration). We show that...

We show that a framework that integrates job assignment, human-capital acquisition, and learning captures several empirical findings concerning wage and promotion dynamics inside firms, including the following. First, real-wage decreases are not rare but demotions are. Second, wage increases are...

Incentive contracts often include important subjective components that mitigate incentive distortions caused by imperfect objective measures. This paper explores the combined use of subjective and objective performance measures in (respectively) implicit and explicit incentive contracts. The...

A partnership is a coalition that divides its output equally. The authors show that when partnerships can form freely, a stable or "core" pa rtition into partnerships always exists and is generically unique. Wh en people differ in ability, the equal-sharing constraint inefficient ly limits the...

The authors show that a new product monopolist may benefit from (delayed) competition if consumers incur setup costs. Setup costs create a dynamic consistency problem: the monopolist cannot guarantee low future prices once customers have incurred those costs. The authors show that, if customers...