How do parties motivate candidates to exert effort in closed-list elections? If each candidate’s primary goal is winning a seat, then those in safe and hopeless list positions have weak incentives to campaign. We present a model in which (i) candidates care about both legislative seats and the...

We study a two-period dynamic principal agent model in which two agents with different unobservable abilities compete in a contest for a single prize. A risk-neutral principal can affect the outcome of the contest by dividing a given budget between agents in each period and her net payoff...

This paper analyzes incentives for cronyism in politics within an agency problem model with moral hazard. The analysis focuses on the institutional features, which define contractual and appointment procedures within political organizations. The institutional framework does not allow explicit...

This paper analyzes the role of yardstick competition for improving political decisions. We examine how performance comparisons across jurisdictions affect the agency problem resulting from uncertainty about politicians (adverse selection) and their policies (moral hazard). We study two forms of...

Using panel data for 106 countries in 1971-1997, we estimate generalized least squares regressions to explain IMF lending as well as monetary and fiscal policies in the recipient countries. With respect to moral hazard, we find that a country's rate of monetary expansion and its government...

In most modern democracies elected officials can work in the private sector while appointed in parliament. We show that when the political and market sectors are not mutually exclusive, a trade-off arises between the quality of elected officials and the effort they exert in political life. If...

Consider a principal-agent relationship in which more effort by the agent raises the likelihood of success. Does rewarding success, i.e., paying a bonus, increase effort in this case? I find that bonuses have not only an incentive but also an income effect. Overall, bonuses paid for success may...