This paper provides a first study of the optimal design of active monitors' exit options in a problem involving a demand for liquidity and costly monitoring of the issuer. Optimal incentives to monitor the issuer may involve restricting the monitor's right to sell her claims on the firm's...

This paper reflects on the economics and politics of an international climate policy agreement. The international community has so far failed to design institutions and a compensation scheme that would lead to an abatement effort commensurate with the IPCC recommendations that it attempts...

Regarding regulated fees, some broadly contemplated regulatory methodologies bear only limited resemblance with economically sound precepts. Jean Tirole (Univ. of Toulouse)

The recent crisis was characterized by massive illiquidity. This paper reviews what we know and don't know about illiquidity and all its friends: market freezes, fire sales, contagion, and ultimately insolvencies and bailouts. It first explains why liquidity cannot easily be apprehended through...

This paper analyzes the impact of labor market competition and skill-biased technical change on the structure of compensation. The model combines multitasking and screening, embedded into a Hotelling-like framework. Competition for the most talented workers leads to an escalating reliance on...

A central tenet of economics is that individuals respond to incentives. For psychologists and sociologists, in contrast, rewards and punishments are often counterproductive, because they undermine "intrinsic motivation". We reconcile these two views, showing how performance incentives offered by...

Pigovian taxation of externalities has limited appeal if the tortfeaser has insufficient resources to pay the damage when it occurs. To defend Pigovian taxation in the presence of judgement-proof agents, its proponents point at the many institutions extending liability to third parties. Yet...