This paper studies how incentives are affected by intention-based reciprocity preferences when the principal hires many agents. Our results describe the agents' psychological attitudes required to sustain a given strategy profile. We also show that hiring reciprocal agents to implement a first...

We study the problem of a Legislator designing immunity for privately informed cooperating accomplices. Our objective is to highlight the positive (vertical) externality between expected returns from crime and the information rent that must be granted by the Legislator to whistleblowers in order...

We build an equilibrium model of prostitution where clients and sex workers choose to demand and supply sex under three legal regimes: prohibition, regulation and laissez-faire. The key feature is the endogenous evolution of the risk as a consequence of policy changes. We calibrate the model to...

This paper studies the impact of intention-based reciprocity preferences on the free-riding problem arising in partnerships. Our results suggest a tendency of efficient partnerships to consist of members whose sensitivity to reciprocity is -- individually or jointly -- sufficiently high....

We study the choice between a traditional technology characterized by known risks and an innovative technology (a geological storages for nuclear wastes, a genetically modified organism or a new treatment in medical science) subject to scientific uncertainty. We assume that the two technologies...

Firms have incentives to invest in wage reducing practices when they expect a high advertising equilibrium in the future product market competition. Incentives to invest in wage reducing practices like shifting the production to the third world or lobbying legislators to change labor market...

We analyze corporate fraud in a model where managers have superior information but, due to private benefits from empire building, are biased against liquidation. This may induce them to misreport information and even bribe auditors when liquidation would be value-increasing. To restrain fraud,...

We study regulation of the auditing profession in a model where audit quality is unobservable and enforcing regulation is costly. The optimal audit standard falls short of the first-best audit quality, and is increasing in the riskiness of firms and in the amount of funding they seek. The model...

We analyze the effects of judicial errors on the innovative activity of firms. Successful research investment allows to take a new action that may be ex-post welfare enhancing or welfare decreasing (illegal). Deterrence in this setting works by affecting both the incentives to invest in research...

Stricter laws require more incisive and costlier enforcement. Since enforcement activity depends both on available tax revenue and the honesty of officials, the optimal legal standard of a benevolent government is increasing in per-capita income and decreasing in officials’ corruption. In...