We study a principal-agent relationship with auditing in which information from an audit is “soft” – by conducting an audit, the principal observes the agent’s private information, but cannot obtain a verifiable evidence on the information. Moreover, the principal’s auditing effort is...

We study a principal-agent model in which the principal has a production technology. The efficiency parameter of the principal's technology is not known to the agent. Alternatively, the principal can make the agent use a technology from a different channel. By gathering information at a cost,...

This paper considers an agency contracting with multiple alternative tasks. The agent is privately informed on some tasks, but he must gather information on the other tasks. We show that depending on the cost to gather information, choice of task is employed as an instrument to induce...