This chapter is a survey of modern theories of the firm. We categorize these as belonging either to the principal-agent or the incomplete contracting approach. In the former category fall, for example, the Alchian and Demsetz moral hazard in teams theory as well as Holmstrøm and Milgrom’s theory of the firm as an incentive system. Belonging to the incomplete contracting branch are theories that...

This paper analyzes the incentive effect of affirmative action at college admissions level in an asymmetric, complete-information, all-pay auction model. One minority and one non-minority candidate compete for a seat in a college. The admissions officer may unequally weigh candidates’ academic quality to address certain policy concern. Moderately administered preferential admissions procedure, ...

Improving a company’s bargaining position is often cited as a chief motivation to vertically integrate with suppliers. This paper expands on that view in building a new theory of vertical integration. In my model firms integrate to gain bargaining power against other suppliers in the production process. The cost of integration is a loss of flexibility in choosing the most suitable suppliers for...

The Journal of Economic Literature codes classification system (JEL) published by the American Association (AEA) is de facto standard for research literature in economics. JEL used to classify articles, dissertations, books, book reviews, and working papers EconLit, a database maintained AEA. Over time, it has evolved extended with over 850 subclasses. This paper reviews history development sys...

Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA) imposed stringent requirements on Key Employee Retention Plan (KERP) adoptions and implicitly favored Performance Incentive Plans (PIPs) in the amended Chapter 11. We use court documents to differentiate between retention versus performance incentive plans, and examine their impact on bankruptcy resolution before and after...

Modern societies are characterized by competing organizations that rely predominantly on incentive schemes to align the behavior of their members with the organizations’ objectives. This study contributes to explaining why in so many cases incentive schemes have gradually crowded out cooperation as an organization device. Our explanation does not draw on free-riding, the obvious Achilles’ heel ...

This paper analyzes a model in which the risk associated with entrepreneurial activity implies that the amount of such activity is procyclical and results in amplification and intertemporal propagation of productivity shocks. In the model risk averse agents choose between a riskless project and a risky project with higher expected output (‘the entrepreneurial activity’). Agents who become entre...

I study how strategic alliances and their impact on future competitive incentives can motivate interfirm equity sales. In the model, an alliance between an entrepreneurial firm and an established firm improves efficiency for both. However, the requisite knowledge transfer heightens the established firm’s incentive to enter one of its partner’s markets. I show that equity can eliminate the entry...

We investigate the adverse selection problem where a principal delegates multiple tasks to individuals. The individuals form a group as a single agent and share their private signals in order to maximize their average payoff. We characterize the virtually implementable social choice functions by using the linking mechanism proposed by Jackson and Sonnenschein (2005) that restricts the message s...

The single-crossing assumption simplifies the analysis of screening models as local incentive compatibility becomes sufficient for global incentive compatibility. If single crossing is violated, global incentive compatibility constraints have to be taken into account. This paper studies monotone solutions in a screening model that allows a one-time violation of single crossing. The results show...