This paper considers optimal compensation for a CEO who is entrusted with administering corporate assets honestly.  Optimal compensation designs maximize integrity at minimum cost.  These designs are very 'low powered', i.e., while specifying a lower bound for performance and increasing pay...

This paper investigates the behaviour of bodies or organizations, operating in a stochastic environment, where there is a delegated decision maker.  A crucial decision is when to delegate to another decision maker.  The problem may be intrapersonal, as occurs when there are endogenously...

This paper introduces signaling in a standard market microstructure model so as to explore the economic circumstances under which hype and dump manipulation can be an equilibrium outcome.  We consider a discrete time, multi-period model with stages of signaling and asset trading.  A single...

Previous studies into aid allocation have concluded that foreign aid is allocated not only according to development needs but also according to donor self-interest.  We revisit this topic and allow for donor as well as recipient specific effects in our analysis.  Our results indicate that...

This paper analyzes secessions through the lens of representative democratic institutions and considers the incentives of partisan political parties to support independence movements.  It points out that, if anything, separatists should expect to receive support from exactly the "unlike-minded"...

I construct a trade model of empire, and use it to interpret some of the key patterns in the history of European imperialism.  I begin from the observation that trade was a key source of wealth for the colonies, and trade restrictions a key tool of extraction for colonial powers.  But the...

A corrupt transaction is often the result of bargaining between the parties involved.  This paper models bribery as a double auction where a private citizen and a public official strategically interact as the potential buyer and the potential seller of a corrupt service.  Individuals differ in...

I describe a new static (sealed-bid) auction for multiple substitute goods.  As in a two-sided simultaneous multiple round auction (SMRA), bidders bid on multiple assets simultaneously, and bid-takers choose supply functions across assets.  The auction yields more efficiency, revenue,...

This paper explores the extent and nature of gender differences, by age, in household health expenditure allocation.  Using South African data, we adopt a hurdle methodology, constructing a sequence of decision stages (reporting sickness, consulting medical practitioner, incurring positive...

This paper presents a wage series for unskilled English women workers from 1260 to 1850 and compares it with existing evidence for men.  Our series cast light on long run trends in women's agency and wellbeing, revealing an intractable, indeed widening gap between women and men's remuneration...