Using an agency model, we show how delegation, by generating additional private information, improves dynamic incentives under limited commitment. It circumvents ratchet effects and facilitates the revelation of persistent private information through two effects: a play-hardball effect, which...

This paper considers the effects of an interim performance evaluation on the decision of a principal to delegate authority to a potentially biased but better informed agent. Assuming the agents ́outside option to be determined by market beliefs about their type, interim evaluations (a) provide...

By incorporating reciprocity in an otherwise standard principal-agent model, I investigate the relation between monetary gift-exchange and incentive pay, while allowing for worker heterogeneity. I assume that some, but not all, workers care more for their principal when they are convinced that...

We study ex post information rents in sequential screening models where the agent receives private ex ante and ex post information. The principal has to pay ex post information rents for preventing the agent to coordinate lies about his ex ante and ex post information. When the agent's ex ante...

Riordan and Sappington (JET, 1988) show that in an agency relationship in which the agent's type is correlated with a public ex post signal, the principal may attain first best (full surplus extraction and efficient output levels) if the agent is faced with a lottery such that each type is...

This paper characterizes the equilibrium sets of an intrinsic common agencygame with discrete types and direct revelation mechanisms. After presentinga general algorithm to find the pure-strategy equilibria of this game, we use itto characterize these equilibria when the two principals control...

This study investigates the impact of firm-specific discount factors on merger formation and market performance. We estimate firm-specific discount factors for 228 publicly traded and privately held firms operating in the semiconductor market and apply a heterogeneous treatment effects model...

We examine the strategic use of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in imperfectly competitive markets. The level of CSR determines the weight a firm puts on consumer surplus in its objective function before it decides upon supply. First, we consider symmetric Cournot competition and show that...