We develop a dynamic principal-agent model for financing a multistage project. The optimal contract displays the following unique features: (i) There is a pecking order between milestone bonuses and deferred compensation: when an intermediate stage succeeds, principal prefers to use deferred...

Intangible capital can be used to create new goods and services (product intangibles) or to improve the efficiency of the firm (process intangibles). We reveal and study a new empirical fact: Executive and skilled labor pay is increasing in firm process intensity (the fraction of intangibles...

We study optimal contracting between a firm selling a divisible good that exhibits positive externality and a group of agents in a social network. The extent of externality that each agent receives from the consumption of neighboring agents is privately held and is unknown to the firm. By...

We study a contracting problem in continuous-time where the principal hires an agent to conduct an R&D project for which progress towards success is binary. Under general concave payoffs, we explicitly derive the optimal dynamic incentive con- tract. In the first best scenario where incentives...

The conventional view is that capital requirements, those intended to reduce bank risks, can have a negative impact on bank lending. This paper reconsiders this view by studying the interaction between capital requirements and corporate governance. Our model highlights how capital requirements...

We examine dynamic contracts when output has negative environmental effects and the manager (agent) can invest to build up ESG capital and mitigate the externality. The incentive component of the optimal contract rewards based on cash flow and ESG capital when the principal is risk neutral; and...