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...

Politicians may pander to public opinion and may renounce undertaking beneficial long-term projects. To alleviate this problem, we introduce a triple mechanism involving political information markets, reelection threshold contracts, and democratic elections. An information market is used to...

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 flexible commitment device and can improve economic performance when the economy is stuck in a liquidity...

We consider an in nitely repeated reappointment game in a principal- agent relationship. Typical examples are voter-politician or government- public servant relationships. The agent chooses costly effort and enjoys being in office until he is deselected. The principal observes a noisy signal of...

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 politician must reach in order to have the right to stand for...

We consider an infinitely repeated reappointment game in a principal-agent relationship. Typical examples are voter-politician or government-public servant relationships. The agent chooses costly effort and enjoys being in office until he is deselected. The principal observes a noisy signal of...