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We study optimal contracts offered by two firms competing for the exclusive services of one worker, who is privately informed about her ability and her motivation. Firms differ both in their production technology and in the mission they pursue and a motivated worker is keen to be hired by the mission-oriented firm. We find that the matching of worker types to firms is always Pareto-efficient. When the difference in firms' technology is high, only the most efficient firm is active. When the difference is not very high, then agent types sort themselves by motivation: the mission-oriented firm hires motivated types and the profit-oriented firm employs non-motivated ones, independently of ability. Effort provision is higher when the worker is hired by the mission-oriented firm, but a compensating wage differential might exist: the motivated worker is paid less by the mission-oriented firm. Such an earnings penalty is driven entirely by motivation, is increasing in ability and is associated to low power of incentives.

We study the screening problem of a firm that needs to hire a worker to produce output and that observes neither the productive ability nor the intrinsic motivation of the job applicant. We completely characterize the set of optimal contracts according to whether motivation or ability is the main determinant of the worker's performance. We show that it is always in the firm's interest to hire all types of worker and to offer different contracts to different types of employees. Interestingly, when motivation is very high, incentives force the firm to pay higher informational rents, to increase effort distorsions for motivated workers, and to offer a strictly positive wage to workers enjoying a positive utility from effort provision, who thus become paid volunteers. These results suggest that, from the principal's viewpoint, very high motivation might not be a desirable worker's characteristic.

This paper investigates banks' corporate social responsibility. The credit market is composed of two sectors: one for standard and one for ethical projects. Since ethical banks are committed to investing in ethical projects, standard and ethical banks compete in the market for ethical projects. The latter have also a social profitability, but a lower expected revenue with respect to standard ones. If their expected revenue is not too low, ethical projects are undertaken by motivated borrowers. The latter obtain a benefit (a social responsibility premium) from accomplishing ethical projects in general and a premium for successful interaction when trading with ethical banks in the case the project is successful. If the expected profitability of ethical projects is sufficiently close to that of standard ones and/or the premium for successful interaction of motivated borrowers is sufficiently high, ethical banks are active, both sectors of the credit market exist and the whole market is fully segmented. This result holds true irrespective of the information structure: only moral hazard on the borrower side, moral hazard and screening on the borrower side. The optimal contract in our set-up is always a debt contract. However, its precise form and welfare properties depend on the information structure.

We compare the alternative approaches for regulating genetic information in the health insurance market when prevention measures are available. In the model, firms offer insurance contracts to consumers who are initially uninformed of their risk type but can obtain such information by performing a costless genetic test. A crucial ingredient of our analysis is that information has decision-making value since it allows for optimal choice of a self-insurance action (secondary prevention). We focus on the welfare properties of market equilibria obtained under the different regulatory schemes and, by using an intuitive graphical analysis, we rank them unambiguously. Our results show that Disclosure Duty weakly dominates the other regulatory schemes and that Strict Prohibition represents the worst regulatory approach.

We compare the alternative approaches for regulating genetic information in the health insurance market when prevention measures are available. In the model, firms offer insurance contracts to consumers who are initially uninformed of their risk type but can obtain such information by performing a costless genetic test. A crucial ingredient of our analysis is that information has decision-making value since it allows for optimal choice of a self-insurance action (secondary prevention). We focus on the welfare properties of market equilibria obtained under the different regulatory schemes and, by using an intuitive graphical analysis, we rank them unambiguously. Our results show that Disclosure Duty weakly dominates the other regulatory schemes and that Strict Prohibition represents the worst regulatory approach.

We use a simple version of the Psychological Expected Utility Model (Caplin and Leahy, QJE, 2001) to analyze the optimal choice of information accuracy by an individual who is concerned with anticipatory feeling. The individual faces the following trade-off: on the one hand information may lead to emotional costs, on the other the higher the information accuracy, the higher the efficiency of decision-making. We completely and explicitly characterize how anticipatory utility depends on information accuracy, and study the optimal amount of information acquisition. We obtain simple and explicit conditions under which the individual prefers no-information or partial information gathering. We show that anomalous attitudes towards information can be more articulated than previously thought.

We analyse a model of patient decision-making where anxiety about the future characterizes the patient's utility function. Anxiety corresponds to fear of bad news and results in the patient being averse to information. First, the patient chooses the accuracy of a signal which discloses information on his health status. Then he up-dates his beliefs according to Bayes's rule and chooses an action. We show that the choice of imprecise information can be optimal because it allows the patient to trade off the damage deriving from complete ignorance with the anxiety raised by the news about his health level.

In economic perspective, the agency relationship between a patient and his physician has dramatically changed in the past years and is still evolving. Great emphasis is now placed on communication issues. The debate on the amount and precision of information on his health status the patient would/should acquire is still open and likewise the definition of the role of the patient's choice in the agency relationship. The debate is not only academic: in fact, it has important policy implications on the reimbursement schemes for physicians and informed consent.

The paper focuses on the signaling value of a tax when agents are less informed on the effect of their consumption than the policy-maker. When he chooses the tax, the policy-maker optimizes both the incentive effect and the effect on beliefs. We show that optimal taxes under symmetric information are not implementable under asymmetric information. The tax distortion required for credibility depends on the marginal cost of public funds and brings to undertaxation.

The paper focuses on the signaling value of a tax when agents are less informed on the effect of their consumption than the policy-maker. When he chooses the tax, the policy-maker optimizes both the incentive effect and the effect on beliefs. We show that optimal taxes under symmetric information are not implementable under asymmetric information. The tax distortion required for credibility depends on the marginal cost of public funds and brings to undertaxation.

We study a situation where the government influences consumers` behavior by providing both information and incentives. More generally, we propose a methodology for solving models of signl cum cheap talk. We develop the case of consumption choice in the presence of uncertainty nd external effects. The institutions used by delivering biased information to the misbehaver. We study the equilibrium trade-off between informing and giving incentives. Environmental tax policy, anti-smoking campaigns and policy against antibiotics over-consumption serve as illustration.

We study a situation where the government influences consumers` behavior by providing both information and incentives. More generally, we propose a methodology for solving models of signl cum cheap talk. We develop the case of consumption choice in the presence of uncertainty nd external effects. The institutions used by delivering biased information to the misbehaver. We study the equilibrium trade-off between informing and giving incentives. Environmental tax policy, anti-smoking campaigns and policy against antibiotics over-consumption serve as illustration.

We study subgame-perfect equilibria of the classical quality-price, multistage game of vertical product differentiation. Each firm can choose the levels of an arbitrary number of qualities. Consumers' valuations are drawn from independent and general distributions. The unit cost of production is increasing and convex in qualities. We characterize equilibrium prices, and the equilibrium effects of qualities on the rival's price in the general model. We present necessary and sufficient conditions for equilibrium differentiation in any of the qualities.