Abstract This paper studies the efficiency of collusion between supervisors and supervisees. Building on Tirole (1986)'s results that deterring collusion with infinitely risk averse supervisors is impossible, while it is costless to do so under risk neutrality, we develop here a theory of...

This paper studies the efficiency of collusion between supervisors and supervisees. Building on Tirole (1986)'s results that deterring collusion with infinitely risk averse supervisors is impossible, while it is costless to do so under risk neutrality, we develop here a theory of collusion based...

We show that the separation of powers in regulation may act as a commitment against the threat of regulatory capture. Splitting regulatory tasks and monitoring technologies among several nonbenevolent regulators may reduce their discretion in engaging in socially wasteful activities. When...

We discuss the internal organization of the firm, arguing that the comparison between a centralized and a decentralized hierarchical organization should be cast in terms of the agency costs associated with the different side-contracting games that agents play in these organizations. In our...

This paper shows that supervision with soft information is valuable whenever supervisors and supervisees collude under asymmetric information and proceeds then to derive an Equivalence Principle between organizational forms of supervisory and productive activities. We consider an organization...

We propose a theory of supervision with endogenous transaction costs. A principle delegates part of his authority to a supervisor who can acquire soft information about an agent's productivity. If the supervisor were risk-neutral, the principal would simply make the better informed supervisor...