This essay considers dynamic security design and corporate financing, with particular emphasis on informational microfoundations. The central idea is that firm insiders must retain an appropriate share of firm risk, either to align their incentives with those of outside investors (moral hazard)...

Many dynamic incentive problems have primal recursive formulations in which utility promises serve as state variables. We associate families of dual recursive problems with these by selectively dualizing constraints. We make transparent the connections between recursive primal and dual...

In his seminal paper of 1928, Ramsey conjectured that if agents discounted the future differently, in the long run all agents except the most patient would live at the subsistence level. The validity of this conjecture was investigated in different environments. In particular, it has been...

In his seminal paper of 1928, Ramsey conjectured that if agents discounted the future differently, in the long run all agents except the most patient would live at the subsistence level. The validity of this conjecture was investigated in different environments. In particular, it has been...

This paper reconsiders the applicability of a recently posed theoretical result concerning the optimality of not providing interim performance evaluations to the agent when implementing a given amount of total effort. The model used by Lizzeri, Meyers and Persico (2002) under the assumption of a...

This paper describes optimal contracts in a dynamic costly state verification model with stochastic monitoring. An agent operates a risky project on behalf of a principal over several periods. Each period, the principal can observe the revenues from the project provided he incurs a fixed cost....

This paper describes optimal contracts in a dynamic costly state verification model with stochastic monitoring. An agent operates a risky project on behalf of a principal over several periods. Each period, the principal can observe the revenues from the project provided he incurs a fixed cost....

This paper analyzes optimal foreign aid policy in a neoclassical growth framework with a conflict of interest between the donor and the recipient government. Aid conditionality is modeled as a limited enforceable dynamic contract. We define the contract to be self-enforcing if, at any point in...