We propose a theory of supervision with endogenous transaction costs. A principal delegates part of his authority to a supervisor who can acquire soft information about an agent's productivity. If the supervisor were risk-neutral, the principal would simply make the better informed supervisor...

This paper studies the efficiency of collusion between supervisors and supervisees. Building on Tirole (1986)’s results that deterring collusion with infinitely risk averse supervisors is impossible, while it is costless to do so under risk neutrality, we develop here a theory of collusion...

We propose a theory of supervision with endogenous transaction costs. A principal delegates part of his authority to a supervisor who can acquire soft information about an agent's productivity. If the supervisor were risk-neutral, the principal would simply make the better informed supervisor...

This paper discusses the origins of the transaction costs in side-contracting. In Tirole (1986)'s model of collusion with a risk averse supervisor, the optimal collusion-proof contract trades-off coalitional incentives against an insurance motive. We characterize the corresponding agency cost...

This paper derives an Equivalence Principle between organizational forms of supervisory and productive activities. We consider an organization with an agent privately informed on his productivity and a risk averse supervisor getting signals on the agent's type. In a centralized organization, the...

We propose a theory of supervision with endogenous transaction costs. A principal delegates part of his authority to a supervisor who can acquire soft information about an agent's productivity. If the supervisor were risk-neutral, the principal would simply make the better informed supervisor...