We consider a firm under strict liability that must choose between two risky technologies, one being safer but costlier than the other one. The total potential level of damage increases with the level of activity. We show that, under limited liability, technological change is welfare improving...

This paper seeks to characterize incentive compensation in a static principal-agent moral hazard setting in which both the principal and the agent are prudent (or downside risk averse). We show that optimal incentive pay should then be `approximately concave' in performance, the approximation...

We develop a formal model to compare the incentive effect of strict liability rules in a risky and ambiguous environment. The firm's business activity entails a risk of technological disaster, which likelihood is a decreasing function of prevention. To assess our theoretical predictions, we...