We propose a model of equilibrium contracting between two agents who are “boundedly rational” in the sense that they face time costs of deliberating current and future transactions. We show that equilibrium contracts may be incomplete and assign control rights: they may leave some...

The collapse of AAA‐rated structured finance products in 2007 to 2008 has brought renewed attention to conflicts of interest in credit rating agencies (CRAs). We model competition among CRAs with three sources of conflicts: (1) CRAs conflict of understating risk to attract business, (2)...