We develop a theory of leadership that focuses on the role managersplay in motivating employees through their attitude towards employees. We modela manager's attitude as her perception about employees' abilities of successfullycompleting challenging tasks. We show that a positive attitude...

We develop a theory of leadership that focuses on the role managers play in motivating employees through their attitudes towards employees. We model a manager's attitude as her perception about employees' abilities of successfully completing challenging tasks. We show that a positive attitude...

When hiring an adviser (he), a policy maker (she) often faces the problem that she has incomplete information about his preferences. Some advisers are good, in the sense that their preferences are closely aligned to the policy maker's preferences, and some advisers are bad. Recently, some...

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...

Can vanity do any good? It may seem obvious to answer this question in the negative, as economists have shown how reputational concerns lead agents e.g. to ignore valuable information, to herd, and to become overly risk averse. We explore how proud agents may be a social blessing. An agent may...

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...

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 thatintroducing costly effort to become informed about project payoffs (i) eliminates herdbehaviour and (ii) shifts...

Can vanity do any good? It may seem obvious to answer this question in the negative, as economists have shown how reputational concerns lead agents e.g. to ignore valuable information, to herd, and to become overly risk averse. We explore how proud agents may be a social blessing. An agent may...

A committee makes a decision on a project on behalf of the public. Members of the committee agree on the a priori value of the project, and hold additional private information about its consequences. They are experts who care about the value of the project and about being considered well...