This paper extends the classic two-armed bandit problem to a many-agent setting in which N players each face the same experimentation problem. The difference with the single-agent problem is that agents can now learn from the experiments of others. Thus, experiementation produces a public good...

This paper suggests a reason, other than asymmetric formation, why agency contracts are not explicitly contingent on the contracting parties' performances or actions. This reason is the formal nature of contracts: the form, usually written, that contracts are required to take to be enforceable...

Large public bureaucracies are usually less efficient than modern private corporations. This paper explains how the degree of discretionary power might account for this difference in efficiency. In fact, increasing the discretionary power of the intermediate layers of an organization can enhance...

It has been argued that collusion among the members of an organization or a vertical structure creates efficiency losses, and hence should be prevented. This paper shows that whenever collusion takes the form of co-insurance agreements, here called ?friendships?, among the members of a vertical...

We study wage determination in a job-matching model, under the assumption that wages may be continuously renegotiated, so as to reflect the employee's endogenous outside option. We characterize the unique equilibirum of the model and we analyse the distribution of producer surplus. The model is...

We identify and investigate the basic ?hold-up? problem which arises whenever each party to a contingent contract has to pay some ex-ante cost for the contract to become feasible. We then proceed to show that, under plausible circumstances, a ?contractual solution? to this hold-up problem is not...

As Japan entered the 1950s, she was still under allied (mainly, but not exclusively, American) military occupation. The occupation had gone relatively well and the allies were ready to negotiate an early peace treaty. The outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula in June 1950 transformed the...

In an environment in which heterogenous buyers and sellers undertake ex-ante investments, the presence of market competition for matches provides incentives for investment but may leave inefficiencies that take the form of hold-up and coordination problems. This paper shows, using an explicitly...

This discussion paper is a continuation of the two previous pamphlets which appeared under the title, 'On the Periphery of the Russo-Japanese war'. A special symposium on this topic was held in the Morishima Room on 8 March 2008. The first paper is by Mrs Oyama, a researcher on Anglo-Japanese...