An arbiter can decide a case on the basis of his priors or he can ask for further evidence from the two parties to the conflict. The parties may misrepresent evidence in their favour at a cost. The arbiter is concerned about accuracy and low procedural costs. When both parties testify, each of...

We examine how long-term life insurance contracts can be designed to incorporate uncertain future bequest needs. An individual who buys a life insurance contract early in life is often uncertain about the future financial needs of his or her family, in the event of an untimely death. Ideally,...

Can inertia in terminating unsuccessful loans (creditor passivity) be due to the multiplicity of lenders in loan arrangements? Can a lender reschedule, betting against his odds? Private information in the form of bad but coarse news, that would prompt foreclosure on its own, will instead lead to...

We provide an integral condition for the ranking of general information systems in the agency problem. The condition has a straightforward economic interpretation in terms of the sensitivity of a cumulative distribution with respect to the agent's effort. The proposed criterion is shown to be...

We study the problem of deterring undesirable behavior in a moral hazard framework with risk averse individuals, noisy information and costly sanctions. We find that, if sanctions are a pure loss, a utilitarian society should use a bang-bang penalty scheme satisfying the maximum penalty...

Cet article analyse les propriétés de complémentarité et de substituabilité entre systèmes de surveillance et mécanismes incitatifs dans une relation principal-agent, lorsque les parties sont neutres à l'égard du risque et que l'agent fait face à une contrainte de solvabilité. À...

Avec la règle de la responsabilité sans faute, un agent potentiellement insolvable est incité à prendre insuffisammant de précautions dans la pratique d'activités imposant des risques à des tiers. La règle plus courante de la responsabilité pour faute peut pallier ce problème...