Often information structures are such that while individual reputation building is impossible groups of agents would have the possibility of building up a reputation. We experimentally examine whether groups of sellers in markets that suffer from moral hazard are able to build up reputations...

The paper provides an overview of several selected topics dealing with application of agency theory to the credit contracts. The costly state verification and costly punishment models of optimal debt contracts are introduced and compared with respect to their performance in the situation...

Drawing on the proposer-responder game examined by Andreoni, Harbaugh, and Vesterlund (2003), I experimentally test four variations of a principal-agent relationship with fixed pay and real effort. Depending on the treatment, the principal can voluntarily, but at her own expense, (1) only reward...

In this paper, we analyze the equilibrium incentive schemes offered to an agent by two principals who can only observe correlated noisy signals of the one-dimensional action taken by the agent. We look at both cases when the two principals can or cannot cooperate in setting the terms of their...

The high cost of searching for employers borne by prospective employees increases friction in the labor market and inhibits formation of efficient employer-employee relationships. It is conventionally agreed that mechanisms that reduce the search costs (e.g., internet portals for job search)...

We experimentally examine the effects of flexible and fixed prices in markets for experience goods in which demand is driven by trust. With flexible prices, we observe low prices and high quality in competitive (oligopolistic) markets, and high prices coupled with low quality in non-competitive...

Arguing that consumers are the carriers of firms’ reputations, we examine the role of consumer networks for trust in markets that suffer from moral hazard. When consumers are embedded in a network, they can exchange information with their neighbours about their private experiences with...

n a simple model of currency crises caused by creditor coordination failure, we show that bailouts that reduce ex post inefficiency will sometimes create ex ante moral hazard but will sometimes enhance the incentives for governments to take preventative actions. This model helps us understand a...

For the principal-agent problem with moral hazard and adverse selection we establish that within the collection of all measurable, deterministic contracting mechanisms satisfying the individual rationality and incentive compatibility constraints there exists one that is optimal for a risk averse...