Research suggests that boards of directors select CEOs using signals of ability. However, little is known about how boards determine the combination of attributes that constitute a ‘good’ CEO, especially attributes without an ex ante clear impact on managerial quality, such as CEO optimism....

The economic value of the Say-On-Pay (SOP) provision of the Dodd–Frank Act has been a subject of debate. Proponents of this provision suggest these votes benefit shareholders by increasing investor influence over managerial compensation. Opponents of the SOP provision believe compensation...

We show theoretically that optimism can lead a risk-averse Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to choose the first-best investment level that maximizes shareholder value. Optimism below (above) the interior optimum leads the CEO to underinvest (overinvest). Hence, if boards of directors act in the...

Drawing on Clark and Marshall's [Clark Herbert H., Marshall Catherine R. Definite Reference and Mutual Knowledge. In: Joshi Aravind K., Webber Bonnie L., Sag Ivan A., editors. Elements Of Discourse Understanding. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981.] theory of mutual knowledge, this...

We explore the relationship between public information and implementable outcomes in an environment characterized by random endowments and private information. We show that if public signals carry no information about private types, then an exact relationship holds: a more informative public...

Standard auctions are known to be a revenue-maximizing way to sell an object under broad conditions when buyers are symmetric and have independent private valuations. We show that when buyers have interdependent valuations, auctions may lose their advantage, even if symmetry and independence of...

In open internet auctions with deadlines, some bids made near the deadline are randomly lost. Roth and coauthors have demonstrated via full-information examples that multiple bidders bidding late can nevertheless be equilibrium behavior, as the cost to one bidder of a lost bid can be outweighed...

We propose Bayesian generative models for unsupervised learning with two types of data and an assumed dependency of one type of data on the other. We consider two algorithmic approaches, based on a correspondence model, where latent variables are shared across datasets. These models indicate the...

A standard election in which each voter chooses a single alternative permits voters little scope to express the intensity of their preferences. Allowing more complex statements of preferences may not alleviate the problem if voters behave strategically, as only certain statements are credible. I...