Trades in DAX index options with identical maturities cluster around particular classes of strike prices. For example, options with strikes ending on 50 are less traded than options with strikes ending on 00. Clustering is higher when options with close strike prices are good substitutes. The...

In this paper we model intra-daily seasonality in the shape of the residual distribution of the standard ACD model, which is estimated using diurnally (seasonally) adjusted duration data. Specifically, for two of the three companies in our sample, the shapes of the residual distribution for...

In many economic situations several principals contract with the same agents sequentially. Asymmetric learning about agents' abilities provides the first principal with an informational advantage and has profound implications for the design of incentive contracts. We show that the principal...

Holmström's (1982/99) career concerns model has become an important workhorse for the analysis of agency issues in many fields. The underlying signal jamming argument requires players to use information in a Bayesian way which may or may not reasonably approximate real-life decision makers'...

An essential ingredient in models of career concerns is ex ante uncertainty about an agent's type. This paper shows how career concerns can arise even in the absence of any such ex ante uncertainty, if the unobservable actions that an agent takes influence his future productivity. By...

Holmström's (1982/99) career concerns model has become an important workhorse for the analysis of agency issues in many fields. The underlying signal jamming argument requires players to use information in a Bayesian way which may or may not reasonably approximate real-life decision makers'...

Recent bargaining experiments demonstrated an impact of anonymity and incomplete information on subjects' behavior. This has rekindled the question whether "fair" behavior is inspired by regard for others or is explained by external forces. To test for the importance of external pressure we...

Labor turnover creates longer term career concerns incentives that motivate employees in addition to the short term monetary incentives provided by the current employer. We analyze how these incentives interact and derive implications for the design of incentive contracts and organizational...

We study in an online, real-effort experiment how the bracketing of non-binding goals affects performance in a work-leisure self-control problem. We externally induce the goal bracket – daily goals or a weekly goal – and within that bracket let subjects set goals for how much they want to...