Firms compete by choosing both a price and a design from a family of designs that can be represented as demand rotations. Consumers engage in costly sequential search among firms. Each time a consumer pays a search cost he observes a new offering. An offering consists of a price quote and a new...

We use new data from a rental brokers' multiple listings service to examine the contractual agreements between landlords and brokers. The data display two sources of variation in the way in which agents are compensated: 1) 69 percent of listings involve exclusive relationships between landlords...

We present a micro-founded model of design, that provides a framework in which design leads to demand rotations. We show simple sufficient conditions that determine when design should be extreme (fully standardized or fully tailored) or rather be only partially tailored.

The financial crisis has brought a new focus on the accuracy of credit rating agencies (CRAs). In this paper, we highlight the incentives of analysts at the CRAs to provide accurate ratings. We construct a model in which analysts initially work at a CRA and can then either remain or move to a...

Credit rating agencies (CRAs) have long held that reputational concerns discipline their behavior. The value of reputation, however, depends on economic fundamentals that vary over the business cycle. In a model of ratings incorporating endogenous reputation and a market environment that varies,...

Blockholders play a large role in corporate governance. We examine their voting behavior by adding a voter with many votes, i.e., a blockholder, to a standard voting model. A blockholder may not vote with all of her shares. This is efficient because it prevents her from drowning out the...