Governments must usually take policy decisions with an imperfect knowledge of the economic actors' type or the actors' effort level. These issues are addressed within the framework of classic adverse selection or moral hazard models. I discuss in this paper how would the government’s and the...

This paper generalizes a conceptual insight in dynamic contracting with quasilin- ear payoffs: the principal does not need to pay any information rents for extract- ing the agent’s “new” private information obtained after signing the contract. This is shown in a general model in which the...

This paper provides a complete characterization of equilibria in a game-theoretic version of Rothschild and Stiglitz's (1976) model of competitive insurance. I allow for stochastic contract offers by insurance firms and show that a unique symmetric equilibrium always exists. Exact conditions...

In the context of a canonical agency model, we study the payoff implications of introducing optimally structured incentives. We do so from the perspective of an analyst who does not know the agent's preferences for responding to incentives, but does know that the principal knows them. We...

This article provides an overview of modern contract theory and discusses the implications of the theory for contracting for perennial dedicated energy crops. We discuss some of the unique challenges of contracting for dedicated energy crops used for the production of advanced biofuels and...

This paper describes a mechanism designed to induce commercial banks to increase their willingness to extend loans in an economic environment characterized by increased uncertainty and diminished expectations. This mechanism is a new tool for the conduct of monetary policy to combat recessions....

The paper extends the optimal delegation framework pioneered by Holmström (1977, 1984) to a dynamic environment where, at the outset, the agent privately knows his ability to interpret decision relevant private information received later on. We show that any mechanism can be implemented by a...

I study the properties of optimal long-term contracts in an environment in which the agent's type evolves stochastically over time. The model stylizes a buyer-seller relationship but the results apply quite naturally to many contractual situations including regulation and optimal...

Crowdfunding challenges the traditional separation between finance and marketing. It creates economic value by reducing demand uncertainty, which enables a better screening of positive NPV projects. Entrepreneurial moral hazard threatens this effect. Using mechanism design, mechanisms are...

We introduce ex post participation constraints in the standard sequential screening model. This captures the presence of consumer withdrawal rights as, for instance, mandated by EU regulation of "distance sales contracts". With such additional constraints, the optimal contract is static and,...