We examine "Forward Guidance Contracts", which make central bankers' utility contingent on the precision of interest-rate forecasts for some time. Such Forward Guidance Contracts are a exible commitment device and can improve economic performance when the economy is stuck in a liquidity trap....

We study how to efficiently motivate policy-makers to solve political multitask problems. Political multi-task problems typically have outcomes that are difficult to measure. Moreover, there are conflicts among citizens about optimal policies and the agents have the power to tax the citizens to...

We introduce a new type of incentive contract for central bankers: inflation forecast contracts, which make central bankers’ remunerations contingent on the precision of their inflation forecasts. We show that such contracts enable central bankers to influence inflation expectations more...

When politicians are provided with insufficient incentives by the democratic election mechanism, we show that social welfare can be improved by threshold contracts. A threshold incentive contract stipulates a performance level which a politican must reach in order to have the right to stand for...

When politicians have lower discount factors than voters, democratic elections cannot sufficiently motivate politicians to undertake long-term socially beneficial projects. When politicians can offer incentive contracts which become effective upon reelection, the hierarchy of contracts and...

We introduce a new type of incentive contract for central bankers: inflation forecast contracts, which make central bankers’ remunerations contingent on the precision of their inflation forecasts. We show that such contracts enable central bankers to influence inflation expectations more...