We analyze a two-task work environment with risk-neutral but inequality averse individuals. For the agent employed in task 2 effort is verifiable, while in task 1 it is not. Accordingly, agent 1 receives an incentive contract which, due to his wealth constraint, leads to a rent that the other...

Reference-dependent preferences can explain several puzzling observations about organizational change. We introduce a dynamic model in which a loss-neutral firm bargains with loss-averse workers over organizational change and wages. We show that change is often stagnant or slow for long periods...

The O-Ring theory provides a framework for analyzing the effects of team production on the emergence of firms in the New Economy. Given risk-aversion of the potential team members, the productive advantage of perfect ability matching in teams suffices to establish an equilibrium which separates...

We test the implications of ambiguity aversion in a principal-agent problem with multiple agents. When output distributions are uncertain, models of ambiguity aversion suggest that tournaments may become more attractive than independent wage contracts, in contrast to the case where output...

Legal realists expect prosecutors to be selfish. If they get the defendant convicted, this helps them advance their careers. If the odds of winning on the main charge are low, prosecutors have a second option. They can exploit the ambiguity of legal doctrine and charge the defendant for vaguely...

We investigate the theoretically proposed link between judgmental overconfidence and trading activity. In addition to applying classical measures of miscalibration, we introduce a measure to capture misperception of signal reliability, which is the relevant bias in the theoretical overconfidence...

We propose a theory of ex post inefficient renegotiation that is based on loss aversion. When two parties write a long-term contract that has to be renegotiated after the realization of the state of the world, they take the initial contract as a reference point to which they compare gains and...

Several recent papers argue that contracts provide reference points that affect ex post behavior. We test this hypothesis in a canonical buyer-seller relationship with renegotiation. Our paper provides causal experimental evidence that an initial contract has a highly significant and...

We propose a theory of ex post inefficient renegotiation that is based on loss aversion. When two parties write a long-term contract that has to be renegotiated after the realization of the state of the world, they take the initial contract as a reference point to which they compare gains and...