This paper provides a theory on staged or step-by-step privatization. We show that such an approach can be efficient, in the sense that it can successfully transform a state-owned enterprise into an efficient market-based firm by the time when the reform is complete. It may explain the...

Why are bonus/promotion schemes so widely used in reality? Are they effective in alleviating incentive problems? For the standard agency model, this paper proposes an alternative solution to the classical solution in Holmström (1979). The advantages of our solution are that (1) it is a simple...

Should a social program be run at a higher or lower level of government? We consider a government-run program supplying a private good to consumers. We focus on a tradeoff between the advantage of a high level of government in resource allocation and its disadvantage in consumer information. We...