For the principal-agent problem with moral hazard and adverse selection we establish that within the collection of all measurable, deterministic contracting mechanisms satisfying the individual rationality and incentive compatibility constraints there exists one that is optimal for a risk averse...

Despite negative experiences with auctioning off subsidies for renewable energy in some countries, tenders are increasingly used today. We develop a reverse auction which accounts for particularities of intermittent renewable energy sources. Determining the quantity, demanded by the regulator,...

We empirically investigate the effect of procurement oversight on contract outcomes. In particular, we stress a distinction between public and private oversight: the former is a set of bureaucratic checks enacted by contracting offices, while the latter is carried out by private insurance...

A principal provides incentives for independent agents. The principal cannot observe the agents' actions, nor does she know the entire set of actions available to them. It is shown that an anti-informativeness principle holds: very generally, robustly optimal contracts must link the incentive...

We consider guilt averse agents and principals and study the effects ofguilt on optimal behavior of the principal and the agent in a moral hazardmodel.The principal’s contract proposal contains a target effort in addition tothe monetary incentive scheme. By accepting the agreement, the...

In this paper, we analyze the equilibrium incentive schemes oÞered to an agent by two principals who can only observe correlated noisy signals of the one-dimensional action taken by the agent. We look at both cases when the two principals can or cannot cooperate in setting the terms of their...

In this paper I analyze a dynamic moral hazard problem in teams with imperfect monitoring in continuous time. In the model, players are working together to achieve a breakthrough in a project while facing a deadline. The effort needed to achieve such a breakthrough is unknown but players have a...

The paper studies a model of delegated search. The distribution of search revenues is unknown to the principal and has to be elicited from the agent in order to design the optimal search policy. At the same time, the search process is unobservable, requiring search to be self-enforcing. The two...

Drawing on the proposer-responder game examined by Andreoni, Harbaugh, and Vesterlund (2003), I experimentally test four variations of a principal-agent relationship with fixed pay and real effort. Depending on the treatment, the principal can voluntarily, but at her own expense, (1) only reward...

We re-examine the role of managers in preventing free riding when team inputs are not observable. Holmström (1982) shows that managers are necessary due to the team's lack of static incentives to implement budget-breaking group punishments. We ask whether the team can break its own budget in a...