This paper presents a signaling explanation for unemployment. The basic idea is that employment at an unskilled job may be regarded as a bad signal. Therefore, good workers who are more likely to qualify for employment at a skilled job in the future are better off being unemployed than accepting...

A risk-averse consumer purchases an insurance policy; if she suffers a loss, she may receive services from a provider to recover some of the loss. Only the consumer and the provider know if the loss has actually occurred. The provider's behavior is uncertain. With some positive probability, the...

A monopolist produces a good with two qualities. All consumers have the same valuation of the first quality, but their valuations of the second vary, and are their private information. A public agency can verify qualities, and make credible reports to consumers. In Full Quality Report, the...

type="main" <p>A monopolist produces a good with two qualities. All consumers have the same valuation of the first quality, but their valuations of the second vary, and are their private information. A public agency can verify qualities, and make credible reports to consumers. In Full Quality...</p>

A health care provider chooses medical service quality and cost-reduction effort. Both choices are noncontractible. An insurer observes both quality and cost effort, and may credibly disclose them to consumers. In prospective payment, the insurer fully discloses care quality, and sets a...

A managed-care company must decide on allocating resources of many services to many groups of enrollees. The profit-maximizing allocation rule is characterized. For each group, the marginal utilities across all services are equalized. The equilibrium has an enrollee group shadow price...