We introduce a model to explain the economic rationale for the observed policy combination of a developing country (hosting foreign direct investment (FDI) through education investment (EDI)) and the interest of a multinational corporation (MNC) in the local labor quality when it contemplates...

In symmetric common value auctions where bidders differ ex-post in information quality, a seller may benefit from imposing a ceiling on allowable bids. By reducing the winner's curse facing poorly informed bidders, a ceiling encourages them to bid aggressively. This may reduce information rents...

A principal, requiring a team to implement a project by proposing and jointly executing a technique, may benefit from choosing one with internal disharmony. When superior policy proposition by a member is rewarded with unitary executive control, the benefit of control is increasing in the degree...

Investment in information acquisition can be used strategically by banks as a commitment device to augment market power. A static two-period economy with informationally heterogeneous banks is analyzed. Information acquisition limits asymmetries of information and competitors' rents ex post. If...

This article studies information acquisition through investment in improved risk assessment technology in competitive credit markets. A technology has two attributes: its ability to screen in productive borrowers, and its ability to screen out unproductive borrowers. The two attributes have...

We study a Cournot oligopoly with one low-cost (dominant) firm and one or more high-cost (subordinate) firms. If the equilibrium is interior, with all firms producing positive quantity, a reallocation of production relative to the equilibrium point, such that the dominant firm produces more,...

The paper investigates the impact of examinations on incentives and decision-making in bureaucracies and similar organisations. When one amongst a group of bureaucrats can be appointed to give policy advice whose outcome affects all parties, with advisory ability increasing in personal effort, a...

We consider cooperative arrangements in a fixed community where agents may change partners over time and where public communication is possible. Public monitoring and exogenous information flows are absent: any player's action in any period is observed only by the agent himself and his partner...