Consider a principal-agent relationship in which more effort by the agent raises the likelihood of success. Does rewarding success, i.e., paying a bonus, increase effort in this case? I find that bonuses have not only an incentive but also an income effect. Overall, bonuses paid for success may...

We consider a model of moral hazard with limited liability of the agent and effort that is two-dimensional. One dimension of the agent's effort is observable and the other is not. The principal can thusmake the contract conditional not only on outcome but also on observable effort. The...

We consider a two-stage principal-agent model with limited liability in which a CEO is employed as agent to gather information about suitable merger targets and to manage the merged corporation in case of an acquisition. Our results show that the CEO systematically recommends targets with low...

Several empirical findings have challenged the traditional view on the trade-off between risk and incentives. By combining risk aversion and limited liability in a standard principal-agent model the empirical puzzle on the positive relationship between risk and incentives can be explained....

A standard tournament contract specifies only tournament prizes. If agents' performance is measured on a cardinal scale, the principal can complement the tournament contract by a gap which defines the minimum distance by which the best performing agent must beat the second best to receive the...