We demonstrate a novel link between relationship-specific investments and risk in a setting where division managers operate under moral hazard and collaborate on joint projects. Specific investments increase efficiency at the margin. This expands the scale of operations and thereby adds to the...

We consider the optimal allocation of decision rights over noncontractible specific investments. Risk-averse business unit managers each engage in general (stand-alone) operations and invest in joint projects that benefit their own and other divisions. Which of the managers should have the...

The aim of general purpose financial reporting is to provide information that is useful to investors, lenders, and other creditors. With this goal, regulators have tended to mandate increased disclosure. We show that increased mandatory disclosure can weaken a firm's incentive to acquire and...

The aim of general purpose financial reporting is to provide information that is useful to investors, lenders, and other creditors. With this goal, regulators have tended to mandate increased disclosure. We show that increased mandatory disclosure can weaken a firm's incentive to acquire and...

This article develops a Bayesian persuasion model examining a manager's incentives to gather information when the manager can disseminate this information selectively to interested parties (“users”) and when the objectives of the manager and the users are not perfectly aligned. The model...

We study how a firm owner motivates a manager to create value by optimally designing an information system and a compensation contract based on a manipulable performance measure. In equilibrium, the firm either implements a perfect or an uninformative system. The information system and the...