The Economics of Deferral and Clawback Requirements

(with Roman Inderst and Marcus Opp), Journal of Finance, 2022, 77 (4), 2423-2470.

Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance post can be found here.

 

Dynamic Multitasking and Managerial Investment Incentives 

(with Sebastian Pfeil), Journal of Financial Economics, 2021, 142 (2), 954-974. 

The Online Appendix with some supplementary material can be found here.

 

Only Time Will Tell: A Theory of Deferred Compensation 

(with Roman Inderst and Marcus Opp), Review of Economic Studies, 2021, 88 (3), 1253-1278.

 

Persuasion through Selective Disclosure: Implications for Marketing, Campaigning, and Privacy Regulation

(with Roman Inderst and Marco Ottaviani), Management Science, 2020, 66 (11), 4958-4979. 

 

Taxing Externalities under Financing Constraints 

(with Roman Inderst and Ulf Moslener), Economic Journal, 2017, 127 (606), 2478-2503.

Pre-Sale Information 

(with Roman Inderst), Journal of Economic Theory, 2011, 146 (6), 2333-2355.

Supplement with some additional material: Supplement to "Pre-Sale Information".

Older (working paper) version: Price Discrimination and the Provision of Information.

 

Reward for Luck in a Dynamic Agency Model 

(with Sebastian Pfeil), Review of Financial Studies, 2010, 23 (9), 3329-3345.  

 

Worker Runs 

(with Vladimir Vladimirov), revise & resubmit Journal of Finance

Abstract: The voluntary departure of hard-to-replace skilled workers worsens firm prospects, thus, increasing remaining workers' incentives to leave. We develop a model of collective turnover in which firms design compensation to limit the risk of such "worker runs." To achieve cost-efficient retention, firms may use fixed or dilutable variable pay -- such as stock option/bonus pools -- that promises remaining workers more when others leave but gets diluted otherwise. The optimal mix of fixed and dilutable pay depends on firms' relative risk exposure and their financial constraints. Compensating (identical) workers differently and financing investments with debt can improve collective retention. 

 

Negotiating Compensation

(with Vladimir Vladimirov), revise & resubmit Journal of Finance

Abstract: We investigate compensation design in tight labor markets. With private information about firm productivity, firms prefer competing for workers by raising fixed wages. However, workers in better bargaining positions often prefer negotiating for higher bonuses or option pay. We characterize when such differences in preferred compensation structure occur and show that they determine whether workers extract higher compensation by negotiating as opposed to attracting additional job offers. Our analysis of negotiations and competition with endogenous compensation structure has implications for firms' external financing needs and investor base and extends to other applications such as mergers and acquisitions.

 

Regulating Cancellation Rights with Consumer Experimentation

(with Roman Inderst and Sergey Turlo), EEA 2017 Meetings Paper.

Abstract: This paper analyzes the welfare implications of regulating consumers' rights of product return and contract cancellation. The key feature of our model of consumer experimentation is that, after returning a product, consumers turn back to the market and thereby exert a positive pecuniary externality on other firms. As a consequence, in the unregulated market equilibrium, there are always too few such cancellations and returns. A mandatory extension of consumers' rights of cancellation and return, in the form of commonly observed statutory minimum refund periods, increases efficiency only when consumers' share of the surplus is low, and it exacerbates the market failure when it is high. We also show that the generosity of consumers' cancellation rights is not a good predictor of market performance or competition in the market.

 

Disliking to Disagree

(with Kiryl Khalmetski and Mark T. Le Quement), EEA 2018 Meetings Paper.

Abstract: We propose a theory of perceived disagreement aversion, capturing a preference for not being viewed by one's interlocutor as holding a fundamentally different opinion. We study the impact of this preference on information sharing in a model of strategic disclosure with heterogeneous prior beliefs. Equilibrium disclosure is partial and biased towards the prior opinion of the most confident party. The informativeness of equilibrium disclosure is higher the larger the difference in the interlocutors' opinions and the more similar their confidence levels. Senders' preferences over communication partners induce assortative matching in prior opinions, which hurts information sharing.

 

Dividend Regulation and Risk-Taking in a Dynamic Model of Banking (with Sebastian Pfeil)

 

The Dynamics of Cap and Trade (with Sebastian Pfeil)