We analyze a multiple-activity, principal-agent model in which the activities are naturally substitutable for the agent and complementary for the principal. A basic result is that the optimal compensation must cause the agent to view the activities as complements. This complementarity is...

We analyze a multiple-activity principal-agent model in which the activities are naturally substitutable for the agent and complementary for the principal. A basic result is that the optimal compensation mechanism must cause the agent to view the activities as complements. This complementarity...

Why are contracts not fully indexed? In a setting in which fully indexed contracts are feasible, we find that when price-level data are gathered with delay, these contracts are not renegotiation-proof. The contracts that replace them entail a lower level of welfare for the parties to that...

Cyclical patterns in earnings can arise when contracts between firms and their workers are incomplete, and when workers cannot borrow or lend so as to smooth their consumption. Earnings cycles generate occasional large changes in earnings, consistent with some recent empirical findings. At the...

We analyze the contractual relation between workers and their employers when there is nominal risk. The key feature of the problem is that the consumption deflator is random and observed sometime after the effort is exerted. The worker's effort is not observable, and to induce the agent to work,...