This paper reconciles two pronounced trends in U.S. corporate governance: the increase in pay levels for top executives, and the increasing prevalence of appointing CEOs through external hiring rather than internal promotions. We propose that these trends reflect a shift in the relative...

Relational contracts-informal agreements sustained by the value of future relationships-are prevalent within and between firms. We develop repeatedgame models showing why and how relational contracts within firms (vertical integration) differ from those between (nonintegration). We show that...

The benefits of stock options are often not large enough to offset the inefficiency implied by the large divergence between the cost of options to companies and the value of options to risk-averse, undiversified executives and employees. Moreover, the benefits of options can often be achieved...

This article analyzes properties and implications of multiperiod managerial labor contracts under two alternative hypotheses: incentives, in which productivity depends on unobservable effort, and learning, in which ability is unknown and is revealed over time. Shared and conflicting implications...

This paper examines the effect of industrial diversification on state unemployment and per capita income. Diversification may provide a form of employment insurance to states during cyclic downturns. Thus well diversified states should experience lower unemployment. To the extent that...

The author develops a model incorporating variables that previous studies have hypothesized as determinants of labor contract duration, then empirically tests the model using a data set containing bargaining pair-specific, industry-specific, and union-specific variables on 373 contracts signed...