This paper develops a model to study corporate investment decisions using the principal-agent framework. The model has asymmetric information where the agent knows the true value of the company and the principal does not. The model also has uncertainty where the company is presented an...

In this paper I develop a method to estimate the effect of an event on a time series variable. The event is framed in a quasi-experimental setting with time series observations on a treatment variable, which is affected by the event, and a control variable, which is not. Prior to the event, the...

In this paper I present a simple model of government spending where the level of government debt affects the output gap. The structure of the economy is specified such that the output gap has a structural part, which is a function of debt. Based on empirical research, the structural part is...

In this paper I develop a theoretical model to analyze policy that restricts who can own land. I briefly review research related to such policy in Saskatchewan, Canada, and identify a standard supply-demand model that I extend in several ways. First, I replicate results for how policy affects...

Several recent papers argue that contracts provide reference points that affect ex post behavior. We test this hypothesis in a canonical buyer-seller relationship with renegotiation. Our paper provides causal experimental evidence that an initial contract has a highly significant and...

We present an international trade model with multiproduct firms. Firms are heterogeneously endowed with two types of capabilities that jointly determine the trade-off within firms between managing a large portfolio of products and producing at low marginal cost. The model can explain many of the...

This paper reports data from a laboratory experiment on two-period moral hazard problems. The findings corroborate the contract-theoretic insight that even though the periods are technologically unrelated, due to incentive considerations principals can benefit from offering long-term contracts...

We study a continuous-time game of strategic experimentation in which the players try to assess the failure rate of some new equipment or technology. Breakdowns occur at the jump times of a Poisson process whose unknown intensity is either high or low. In marked contrast to existing models, we...

We study endogenous group formation in tournaments employing experimental three-player contests. We find that players in endogenously formed alliances cope better with the moral hazard problem in groups than players who are forced into an alliance. Also, players who are committed to expending...

The compensation of executive board members in Germany has become a highly controversial topic since Vodafone's hostile takeover of Mannesmann in 2000 and it is again in the spotlight since the outbreak of the financial crisis of 2009. Based on unique panel data evidence of the 500 largest firms...