We solve for the equilibrium dynamics of information sharing in a large population. Each agent is endowed with signals regarding the likely outcome of a random variable of common concern. Individuals choose the effort with which they search for others from whom they can gather additional...

This paper derives sufficient conditions for a class of games of incomplete information, such as first price auctions, to have pure strategy Nash equilibria (PSNE). The paper treats games between two or more heterogeneous agents, each with private information about his own type (for example, a...

Consider an agent (manager, artist, etc.) who has imperfect private information about his productivity. At the beginning of his career (period 1, short run"), the agent chooses among publicly observable actions that generate imperfect signals of his productivity. The actions can be ranked...

We study the delegation problem between a principal and an agent, who not only has better information about the performance of the available actions but also has superior awareness of the set of actions that are actually feasible. The agent decides which of the available actions to reveal and...

This paper examines the power of different contractual mechanisms to influence an originator's choice of costly effort to screen borrowers when the originator plans to securitise its loans. The analysis focuses on three potential mechanisms: the originator holds a "vertical slice", or share of...

This paper shows that asymmetric information about the timing of earnings can affect corporate capital structure. It sheds some new light on two following questions: why may profitable firms be interested in issuing equity, and why does debt not necessarily signal a firm quality. These issues...

We analyze the choice of incentive contracts by oligopolistic firms that compete on the product market. Managers have private information and in the first stage they exert cost reducing effort. In equilibrium the standard "no distortion at the top" property disappears and two way distortions are...

This paper extends the team production theory pioneered by Holmstrom (1982) with a team signaling model. In the model, the team's output acts as a signal of the team's ability, and thus is valuable for the team members. The team members will cooperate to some extent to signal a speci fic type,...

We study the screening problem of a firm that needs to hire a worker to produce output and that observes neither the productive ability nor the intrinsic motivation of the job applicant. We completely characterize the set of optimal contracts according to whether motivation or ability is the...

This paper considers general games in which multiple informed principals simultaneously compete to influence the decisions of a common agent. It shows that we can characterize all outcomes of any game in which principals delegate the final decisions to the agent using arbitrary mechanisms, by...