We base a contracting theory for a start-up firm on an agency model with observable but nonverifiable effort, and renegotiable contracts. Two essential restrictions on simple contracts are imposed: the entrepreneur must be given limited liability, and the investor's earnings must not decrease in...

We present three examples of finitely repeated games with public monitoring that have sequential equilibria in private strategies, i.e., strategies that depend on own past actions as well as public signals. Such private sequential equilibria can have features quite unlike those of the more...

We establish conditions under which an English auction for an indivisible risky asset has an efficient ex post equilibrium when the bidders are heterogeneous in both their exposures to, and their attitudes toward, the ensuing risk the asset will generate for the winning bidder. Each bidder's...

This paper analyzes the effects of buyer and seller risk aversion in first and second-price auctions. The setting is the classic one of symmetric and independent private values, with ex ante homogeneous bidders. However, the seller is able to optimally set the reserve price. In both auctions the...

We analyze the effects of buyer and seller risk aversion in first- and second-price auctions in the classic setting of symmetric and independent private values. We show that the seller's optimal reserve price decreases in his own risk aversion, and more so in the first-price auction. The reserve...

This paper analyzes the effects of buyer and seller risk aversion in first and second-price auctions. The setting is the classic one of symmetric and independent private values, with ex ante homogeneous bidders. However, the seller is able to optimally set the reserve price. In both auctions the...

Cross-asset derivative securities are studied and a dichotomous asset pricing model (DAPM) is derived that significantly enriches the Sharpe-Lintner-Black capital-asset pricing model. An asset's beta is shown to be observable ex ante through the price of its cross-market call or put, and the...

This paper presents a new approach to decision-making under risk. Preference over risky prospects is defined as a triadic reference-dependent relation in a sense similar to Sugden (2003). Characterized by a set of von Neumann-Morgenstern-style axioms, a new reference-dependent representation...

We investigate the possibility of enhancing efficiency by awarding premiums to a set of highest bidders in an English auction— in a setting that extends Maskin and Riley (1984, <I>Econometrica</I> 52: 1473-1518) in three aspects: (i) the seller can be risk averse, (ii) the bidders can have...</i>