This work contributes to the literature demonstrating an important role for psychological traits in labor market decisions. We show that West German workers with an internal locus of control sort into jobs with performance appraisals. Appraisals provide workers who believe they control their...

This work contributes to the literature demonstrating an important role for psychological traits in labor market decisions. We show that West German workers with an internal locus of control sort into jobs with performance appraisals. Appraisals provide workers who believe they control their...

We propose a new theory of suboptimal risk-taking based on contractual externalities. We examine an industry with a continuum of firms. Each firm's manager exerts costly hidden effort. The productivity of effort is subject to systematic shocks. Firms' stock prices reflect their performance...

We examine the incentive effects of private equity (PE) professionals' ownership in the funds they manage. In a simple model, we show that managers select less risky firms and use more debt financing the higher their ownership. We test these predictions for a sample of PE funds in Norway, where...

I show that stochastic contracts generate powerful incentives when agents suffer from probability distortion. When implementing these contracts, the principal can target probability distortions in order to inflate the agent's perceived benefits of exerting high levels of effort. This novel...

Private equity fund managers are typically required to invest their own money alongside the fund. We examine how this coinvestment affects the acquisition strategy of leveraged buyout funds. In a simple model, where the investment and capital structure decisions are made simultaneously, we show...

Given the recent empirical evidence on peer effects in CEO compensation, this paper theoretically examines how relative wealth concerns, in which a manager's satisfaction with his own compensation depends on the compensation of other managers, affect the equilibrium contracting strategy and...

We propose a new theory of suboptimal risk-taking based on contractual externalities. We examine an industry with a continuum of firms. Each firm's manager exerts costly hidden effort. The productivity of effort is subject to systematic shocks. Firms' stock prices reflect their performance...

Consider an agent who can costlessly add mean-preserving noise to his output. To deter such risk-taking, the principal optimally offers a contract that makes the agent's utility concave in output. If the agent is risk-neutral and protected by limited liability, this concavity constraint binds...

Remuneration systems in the banking industry, particularly bonus payments, have frequently been blamed for contributing to the build-up of risks leading to the recent financial crisis. In our model banks compete for managerial talent that is private information. Competition for talent sets...