This paper examines individual decision making when decisions reflect on people's ability to learn. We address this problem in the context of a manager making investment decisions on a project over time. We show that in an effort to appear as a fast learner, the manager will exaggerate his own...

We present a Theory of Contracts under costly enforcement in the context of a dynamic relationship between an uninformed buyer and a seller who is privately informed on his persistent cost at the outset. Public enforcement relies on remedies for breach. Private enforcement comes from severing...

We present a Theory of Contracts under costly enforcement in the context of a dynamic relationship between an uninformed buyer and a seller who is privately informed on his persistent cost at the outset. Public enforcement relies on remedies for breach. Private enforcement comes from severing...

Polarized interest groups compete to influence a decision-maker through monetary contributions. The decision-maker chooses a one-dimensional policy and has private information about his ideal point. Competition between interest groups under asymmetric information yields a rich pattern of...

We use a mechanism design approach to study the organization of interest groups in an informational model of lobbying. Interest groups influence the legislature only by communicating private information on their preferences and not by means of monetary transfers. Interest groups have private...

We use a mechanism design approach to study the organization of interest groups in an informational model of lobbying. Interest groups influence the legislature only by communicating private information on their preferences and not by means of monetary transfers. Interest groups have private...

This paper uses a mechanism design approach to characterize the optimal organization of lobbying groups in a political context where those groups have private information on their ideal points in a one-dimensional policy space. First, we derive the optimal mechanism for one single group and show...

This paper introduces asymmetric information in a pluralistic model of interest groups competition and analyzes its impact on policy biases. Lobbying groups are uninformed on a decision maker's preferences and use nonlinear contributions not only to compete for the agent's services but also to...

Polarized interest groups (principals) compete to influence a decision-maker (agent) through monetary contributions. This decision-maker chooses a one-dimensional policy and has private information about his ideal point. Competition between interest groups under asymmetric information yields a...