I consider the problem of the design of an optimal self-selecting contract scheme for a principal who is buying a good from an agent which has the opportunity of making a cost-reducing unobservable investment prior to the contracting stage. Because of a hold-up problem, the agent will randomize...

We study the regulation of a monopolistic firm that provides a non-marketed output based on multiple substitutable inputs. The regulator is able to observe the effectiveness of the provision, but faces information asymmetries with respect to the efficiency of the firm's activities. Motivated by...

We study the regulation of a monopolistic firm that provides a non-marketed output based on multiple substitutable inputs. The regulator is able to observe the effectiveness of the provision, but faces information asymmetries with respect to the efficiency of the firm’s activities. Motivated...

In this general equilibrium model, justice and police institutions are treated as a mechanism that induces individuals to extend some desirable productive effort. This determines individual encroachment activities which in turn determine the proportion of aggregate production that fails to be...

In many long-term relationships, parties may be reluctant to reveal their private information in order to benefit from their informational advantage in the future. We point out that the strategic use of debt by an uninformed party induces another party to reveal private information. Our...

This paper argues that the strategic use of debt favours the revelation of information in dynamic adverse selection problems. Our argument is based on the idea that debt is a credible commitment to end long term relationships. Consequently, debt encourages a privately informed party to disclose...

This paper considers a multi-period setting where a monopolist, with short-term commitment, rents one unit of a durable good to a single consumer in every period. The consumer's valuation constitutes his private information and remains constant over time. By using a mechanism design approach,...

In this article we analyze the remuneration mechanism for the reduction of energy losses, through a dynamic principal-agent model in continuous time. The agent represents the power distribution company, which makes investments, or in other words, makes an effort to reduce energy losses. The...