We address the question how much authority a principal should delegate to a manager with conflicting interests and uncertain ability in a context in which the manager has both compensationbased and reputational incentives. The optimal level of authority balances the value of the manager's...

We study the optimal hierarchical structure of an organization under limited commitment. The organization cannot make a long term commitment to wages and output levels, while it can commit to its hierarchical structure. We show that the optimal hierarchical structure is horizontal when it is...

Lecture on the first SFB/TR 15 meeting, Gummersbach, July, 18 - 20, 2004: This paper provides an analytical framework for studying principal-agent problems with adverse selection and limited commitment. By allowing the principal to use noisy communication we solve two fundamental problems of...