It is well-established that incumbent firms may try to deter new market entry by pretending to be stronger than they really are (e.g. by imitating the high output level of a low cost monopolist). In this article, we show that in some cases an incumbent may prefer the opposite, namely to...

A physician performs two tasks: making diagnoses and determining treatments. To reduce medical error, residents are supposed to consult their supervisors when they face uncommon circumstances. However, recent research shows that residents are reluctant to do so. This paper presents a model that...

This article analyzes under which conditions a manager can motivate a junior worker by verbal communication, and explains why communication is often tied up with organizational choices as job enlargement and collaboration. Our model has two important features. First, the manager has more...

In models of sequential decision making herd behaviour occurs if the signals smart (dumb) agents receive are (un)correlated and if agents have reputational concerns. We show that introducing costly effort to become informed about project payoffs (i) eliminates herd behaviour and (ii) shifts...