Agents signal their type in a principal-agent model; the principal seeks to retain good agents. Types are signaled with some ambient noise. Agents can choose to add or remove additional noise at a cost. It is shown that monotone retention strategies, in which the principal keeps the agent if the...

This paper explores conditions under which the ability to commit in a principal-agent relationship creates no additional benefit for the principal, over and above simultaneous interaction without commitment. A central assumption is that the principal’s payoff depends only on the payoff to the...

This paper studies the productivity impact of a contract change for tea pluckers in an Indian plantation. The contract, implemented at the end of a three-year cycle in which contracts are generally revised, was (a) the joint outcome of negotiations between twenty unions and plantations, (b)...