Contractual execution generates hard information, available to the contracting parties, even when contracts are secretly executed. Building on this simple observation, the paper shows that incomplete contracts can be preferred to complete contracts. This is because (i) execution of incomplete...

We develop a theory of the emergence of merchant guilds as an efficient mechanism to foster cooperation between merchants and rulers, building on the natural complementarity between merchants’ market trading and mutual monitoring. Unlike existing models, we focus on local merchant guilds,...

We provide an experimental test of the role of self-signaling in decisions to do- nate to charity. Our data strongly supports the theoretical prediction of a non- monotonic, hill-shaped relationship between self-confidence, proxied by the Social Potency personality trait, and prosocial behavior...

The available evidence from numerous studies in psychology suggests that overconfidence is a much more important phenomenon in North America than in Japan. Relatedly, North Americans appear to view high self-esteem much more positively than Japanese. The pattern is reversed when it comes to...

This paper explores a new role for venture capitalists, as knowledge intermediaries. A venture capital investor can communicate valuable knowledge to an entrepreneur, facilitating innovation. The venture capitalist can also communicate the entrepreneur's innovative knowledge to other portfolio...

Six experiments examined how people strategically use thoughts of foregone misdeeds to regulate their moral behavior. We tested two hypotheses: first, that people will feel licensed to act in morally dubious ways when they can point to immoral alternatives to their prior behavior, and second,...