We develop a theory of organization design in which the firm's structure is chosen to mitigate moral hazard problems in the selection and the implementation of projects. For a given set of projects, the 'divisional structure' which gives each agent the full responsibility over a subset of...

Although an extensive amount of literature reviews emerging patterns of east-west co-operation, it is not easy to grasp the state of the art. Too many of the books, articles and papers tend to mark the trees rather than to map the forest. The paper analyses recent trends from the point of view...

Internal organization relies heavily on psychological consistency requirements. This thought has been emphasized in modern compensation theory, but has not been extended to organization theory. The perspective sheds new light on several topics in the theory of the firm, like the boundaries of...

One might easily gain the impression that the academic work of Professor Erich Guten-berg, whose centenary provides the occasion for this lecture, is outdated and has lost touch with contemporary economic theories of the firm. However, this impression would be wrong, as this paper demonstrates...

We use a principal-agent framework to reexamine the implications of the negligence and strict liability rules when the tortfeasor is an agency. (...)

A model where a portion of the population participates in illegal activities is developed. The propensity to participate in crimes depends on the probability and the opportunity cost of beingarrested. The government can influence these variables by law enforcement expenditures and by social...

We provide a condition for ranking of information systems in agencyproblems. The condition has a straightforward economic interpretation in terms of the sensitivity of a cumulative distribution with respect to the agents effort. The criterion is shown to be equivalent to the mean preserving...

This paper deals with endogenous determination of effort as a source of productivity growth.

Es wird ein Modell präsentiert, in dem ein Teil der Bevölkerung straffällig wird.Die Neigung zur Kriminalität hängt von der Wahrscheinlichkeit ab, entdeckt zuwerden, sowie von den Opportunitätskosten, falls man entdeckt wird. Der Staatkann diese Variablen durch Strafverfolgungsmaßnahmen...