Do Unprejudiced Societies Need Equal Opportunity Legislation?

To what extent should banks, insurance companies and employers be allowed to use personal information about the people whom they lend to, insure or employ in setting the terms of the contract? Even when different treatment is motivated by profit not prejudice, banning discrimination (when combined with mandatory protection against failure) may well be the best way of effecting redistribution of income. Unlike income taxation, this policy achieves its goals without much adverse effect on incentives. Public provision of low-powered incentive contracts issued on generous terms is also a potent instrument of efficient redistribution. This is true even if the government cannot observe type but the private sector can.equal opportunities, incentive contracts, asymmetric information, distribution

Do Unprejudiced Societies Need Equal Opportunity Legislation?

To what extent should banks, insurance companies and employers be allowed to use personal information about the people whom they lend to, insure or employ in setting the terms of the contract? Even when different treatment is motivated by profit not prejudice, banning discrimination (when combined with mandatory protection against failure) may well be the best way of effecting redistribution of income. Unlike income taxation this policy achieves its goals without much adverse effect on incentives. Public provision of low-powered incentive contracts issued on generous terms is also a potent instrument of efficient redistribution. This is true even if the government cannot observe type but the private sector can.equal opportunities, incentives, contracts, asymmetric information, distribution

Principal agent problems under loss aversion: an application to executive stock options

Executive stock options reward success but do not penalise failure. In contrast, the standard principalagent model implies that pay is normally monotonically increasing in performance. This paper shows that, under loss aversion, the use of carrots but not sticks is a feature of an optimal compensation contract. Low risk aversion and high loss aversion is particularly propitious to the use of options. Moreover, loss aversion on the part of executives explains the award of at the money options rather than discounted stock or bonus related pay. Other features of stock option grants are also explained, such as resetting or reloading with an exercise price equal to the current stock price

Exclusive Contracts Foster Relationship-Specific Investment

Exclusive contracts prohibit one or both parties from trading with anyone else. Contrary to earlier findings, notably Segal and Whinston (2000), we show that investments that are specific to the contracted parties may be encouraged. Results depend on the nature of the investments and whether the bargaining is cooperative or non-cooperative. The major part of the analysis show that exclusive contracts designed to 'assure' the supply of essential inputs promote investment. Infinite penalties for breach, even if ex post renegotiable, may result in excessive investment, in which case a finite penalty for breach achieves the first-best outcome.exclusive dealing, non-cooperative bargaining, liquidated damages, renegotiation, resale

Please Hold me Up: Why Firms Grant Exclusive Dealing Contracts

Why do irreplaceable firms with a choice of suppliers or customers deliberately expose themselves to the threat of hold up by contracting ex ante to deal with only one of them? Our explanation revolves around the multiple equilibria intrinsic to situations of unverifiable investment and many traders. Exclusive dealing eliminates inefficient equilibria in which too many firms invest too little. The enhanced ex post bargaining power of the chosen firm is beneficial for incentives whilst the distributional impact is more than offset in the ex ante negotiations over which this firm obtains the access privilege.exclusive dealing, hold-up, renegotiation

TOO MUCH INVESTMENT : A PROBLEM OF COORDINATION FAILURE

This paper shows that coordination failure and contractual incompleteness can lead to socially excessive investment. Firms and workers choose investment levels, then enter a stochastic matching process. If investment levels are discrete, and match frictions are low, high-investing workers (firms) impose a negative pecuniary externality on any worker (firm) who cuts investment. Specifically, an agent cutting investment subsequently bargains with a partner with a binding outside option due to the fact that it can easily match with another high investor. The deviant thus bears the full loss in revenue from its action. However, given enough complementarity in investments, when one agent cuts investment it is efficient that its partner also does so. So, only part of the cost saving accrues to the deviant, with the implication that the net private gain to cutting investment is less than the social gain. A similar argument establishes that over-investment can occur when agents are heterogenous i.e. differ in their cost of investing, even if investments are continuous. Then, over-investment occurs because low-cost investors have a private incentive to invest to shift rent away from high-cost investors. Our model can also explain some recent trends in graduate/non-graduate wage differentials.hold-up ; coordination failure ; matching ; over-investment

Appropriability, Investment Incentives and the Property Rights Theory of the Firm

This paper examines the property rights theory of the firm when a manager's relationship-specific investment can be partially appropriated by the owner of an asset when cooperation breaks down. For example ownership typically confers the right to continue with a project even should the production team dissolve. The investments of non-owners may then be devalued, but are seldom wholly loss to the owner. With such spillovers, the outside-option principle can be incorporated into the Grossman-Hart-Moore framework without implying that ownership demotivates. Enriched predictions on the determinants of integration emerge.theory of the firm

Disclosure, Trust and Persuasion in Insurance Markets

This high-stakes experiment investigates the effect on buyers of mandatory disclosures concerning an insurance policy's value for money (the claims ratio) and the seller's commission. These information disclosures have virtually no effect despite most buyers claiming to value such information. Instead, our data reveal that whether the subject is generally trusting plays an important role. Trust is clearly associated with greater willingness to pay for insurance. Unlike in previous work, trust in our setting is not about obligations being fulfilled. The contract is complete, simple and the possibility of breach is negligible. However, as for much B2C insurance marketing, face-to-face selling plays a crucial role in our experimental design. Trusting buyers are more suggestible, so take advice more readily and buy more insurance, although they are no more risk averse than the uninsured. Moreover, trusting buyers feel less pressured by sellers, and are more confident in their decisions which suggests that they are easier to persuade. Therefore, in markets where persuasion is important, public policy designed to increase consumer information is likely to be ineffective.insurance selling, trust, persuasion

Self-employment attracts the optimist

The self-employed are more optimistic in nature, but have the tendency to overestimate their income, according to Professor David de Meza

Self-employment attracts people with an optimistic personality

But they tend to overestimate their income. The greater the optimism, the lower the earnings, writes David de Meza