This paper develops a simple economic framework that is used to explain and critique the recent trend favoring site-specific contractual commitments in environmental regulation. Such contracts typically involve an exchange under which the regulator relaxes ostensibly inflexible uniform...

This paper provides an extended introduction to the game theoretic analysis of cheap talk -- actions which do not have a direct cost, but which affect equilibria only indirectly, via the information about sender type which they convey. After introducing these games, the article takes a...