In this paper, we introduce the psychological concept of anxiety into the standard linear agency model. After replacing the agent's risk premium with anxiety, we show that the agent's optimal effort can conform to the inverted-U hypothesis, which states that an increase in anxiety improves...

This paper studies economies with complete markets where there is positive default on consumer debt. In a simple tractable two-period model, households can default partially, at a finite punishment cost, and competitive intermediaries price loans of different sizes separately. This environment...