Two principals simultaneously appoint one agent each and decide how much power to give to their agents. The agents' task is to bargain over the provision of a public good. Power here means the right to decide the own side's provision if negotiations break down. In equilibrium the principals...

Consider team production with two people. Each is characterized by a prior distribution that he will do Right or Wrong. After the outcome of the project is observed, these probabilities are updated. When output depends on the weakest link in production, following project failure the posterior...

in a bargaining game over the provision of a public good, two principals appoint one agent each to carry out the bargaining. Each agent has preferences over the outcome. Two institutional set-ups are studied, each with a different level of authority given to the agents. By authority is here...

We consider a leader and a subordinate he appoints who engage in team production. The public observes the organization’s performance, but is unable to determine the separate contributions of the leader and of the subordinate. The leader may therefore claim credit for the good work of his...

This study investigates under what circumstances there exist a separating equilibrium in which competent leaders choose incompetent co-workers and incompetent leaders choose competent co-workers. The driving force for the competent leader is the insurance motive; if things go wrong he can blame...

A leader of an organization may view a subordinate as threatening or weakening the leader's position. The threat may increase with the subordinate's ability and reduce the rents the leader wins. In particular, a leader who trains his subordinate reduces the cost to the owner of a firm in...

This study investigates in a two-stage two-player model how the decision to make an ultimatum and how much to demand depends on the impatience of the agents and the pie uncertainty. First, players simultaneously decide on their ultimatums. If the ultimatum(s) are compatible then the player(s)...

A separating equilibrium in which competent (incompetent) leaders choose competent (incompetent) co-workers is investigated. An outside observer rewards the leader at good policy outcomes. The incompetent co-worker can, at bad outcomes, be used as scapegoat. By assumption, the leader may fail in...