"Implicit Contracts, incentive compatibility, and involuntary unemployment" (MacLeod and Malcomson, 1989) remains our most highly cited work. We briefly review the development of this paper and of our subsequent related work, and conclude with reflections on the future of relational contract...

Beliefs are a central determinant of behavior. Recent models assume that beliefs about or the anticipation of future consumption have direct utilityconsequences. This gives rise to informational preferences, i.e., preferences over the timing and structure of information. Using a novel and...

Beliefs are a central determinant of behavior. Recent models assume that beliefs about or the anticipation of future consumption have direct utility-consequences. This gives rise to informational preferences, i.e., preferences over the timing and structure of information. Using a novel and...

This essay considers the role of reputational information in our marketplace. It explains how well-functioning marketplaces depend on the vibrant flow of accurate reputational information, and how misdirected regulation of reputational information could harm marketplace mechanisms. It then...

We perform an incentivized experiment designed to assess the accuracy of beliefs about characteristics and decisions. Subjects are asked to declare some specific choices and characteristics with different levels of observability from an external point of view, and typically formed through real...

When deciding whether to share information, firms consider their private welfare. Discrepancies between social and private welfare may lead firms excessively to share information to anti-competitive ends - in facilitating of cartels and other harmful horizontal practices - a problem both...

Incomplete information issues pervade health care markets, with market participants often having relatively little information, and their behavior exhibiting corresponding aberrations from classic market behavior. Consumers often have relatively little information about prices and quality...