Like the first-mover in an ultimatum game, the principal is a first-mover with foreknowledge of the agent’s “rational” best response function. The solution to the “principal’s problem” is to choose a contract that maximizes the principal’s expected profit given the agent’s...

Social, economic, and organizational development require a degree of stable policy making. The instability of group decision making under majority rule has preoccupied social theorists since Condorcet in the late 18th century. In theory, subtle institutional modifications to pure majority rule...

Group decision making is commonly used in juries, businesses, and in politics to increase the informational basis for a decision and to improve decision accuracy. Recent work on generalizing Condercet's jury theorem provides a compelling justification for using groups in this manner. But these...

This chapter states that institutions and preferences are hopelessly confounded with the world of politics. Starting with data about institutional variation and variation in policy outcomes, it is impossible to make any hard and fast inferences about the impact of institutional features on...

Social and economic development requires some degree of stable policy making. The instability of group decision making under majority rule ahs preoccupied social theorists since Condorcet. In theory, subtle institutional modifications to pure majority rule should induce stability. This paper...

Pure incentive schemes rely on agent self-interest, rather than more coercive control, to motivate subordinates. Yet most organizations, and in particular public agencies, rely very little on pure incentive contracts. Most organizations rely on the primarily coercive mechanisms of monitoring and...