Oliver D Hart
Biographic Data
| ID | 5729367 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Oliver D Hart |
| GIVEN NAMES | Oliver D |
| FAMILY NAME | Hart |
| SIGNATURE | HART O D |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 6 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 415 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 6 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Price Destabilizing Speculation
It is sometimes asserted that rational speculative activity must result in more stable prices because speculators buy when prices are low and sell when they are high. This is incorrect. Speculators buy when the chances of price appreciation are high, selling when the chances are low. Speculative activity in an economy in which all agents are rational, have identical priors, and have access to identical information may destabilize prices, under an…
The Costs and Benefits of Ownership
Our theory of costly contracts emphasizes the contractual rights can by of two types: specific rights and residual rights. When it is costly to list all specific rights over assets in the contract, it may be optimal to let one party purchase all residual rights. Ownership is the purchase of these residual rights. When residual rights are purchased by one party, they are lost by a second party, and this inevitably creates distortions. Firm 1 purch…
Monopolistic Competition in the Spirit of Chamberlin
Journal Article Monopolistic Competition in the Spirit of Chamberlin: Special Results Get access Oliver D. Hart Oliver D. Hart London School of Economics and Massachusetts Institute of Technology I have benefited from the comments of seminar participants at the London School of Economics, the Public Economics Workshop at Caesarea, Israel, May 1983, and the Universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania. I would also like to thank Kelvin Lancaster, Nick…
An Analysis of the Principal-Agent Problem
Most analyses of the principal-agent problem assume that the principal chooses an incentive scheme to maximize expected utility subject to the agent's utility being at a stationary point.An important paper of Mirrlees has shown that this approach is generally invalid.We present an alternative procedure.If the agent's preferences over income lotteries are independent of action, we show that the optimal way of implementing an action by the agent ca…
Unemployment with Observable Aggregate Shocks
A general equilibrium model of optimal employment contracts is developed where firms have better information about labor's marginal product than workers. It is optimal for the wage to be tied to the level of employment, to prevent the firm from falsely stating that the marginal product is low and cutting the wage. It is shown that an observed aggregate shock that leads to an interindustry shift in labor demand and that would have no effect on tot…
Takeover Bids, The Free-Rider Problem, and the Theory of the Corporation
It is commonly thought that a widely held corporation that is not being run in the interest of its shareholders will be vulnerable to a takeover bid. We show that this is false, since shareholders can free ride on the raider's improvement of the corporation, thereby seriously limiting the raider's profit. We analyze exclusionary devices that can be built into the corporate charter to overcome this free-rider problem. We study privately and social…
The Costs and Benefits of Ownership
Our theory of costly contracts emphasizes the contractual rights can by of two types: specific rights and residual rights. When it is costly to list all specific rights over assets in the contract, it may be optimal to let one party purchase all residual rights. Ownership is the purchase of these residual rights. When residual rights are purchased by one party, they are lost by a second party, and this inevitably creates distortions. Firm 1 purch…
Price Destabilizing Speculation
It is sometimes asserted that rational speculative activity must result in more stable prices because speculators buy when prices are low and sell when they are high. This is incorrect. Speculators buy when the chances of price appreciation are high, selling when the chances are low. Speculative activity in an economy in which all agents are rational, have identical priors, and have access to identical information may destabilize prices, under an…
Monopolistic Competition in the Spirit of Chamberlin
Journal Article Monopolistic Competition in the Spirit of Chamberlin: Special Results Get access Oliver D. Hart Oliver D. Hart London School of Economics and Massachusetts Institute of Technology I have benefited from the comments of seminar participants at the London School of Economics, the Public Economics Workshop at Caesarea, Israel, May 1983, and the Universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania. I would also like to thank Kelvin Lancaster, Nick…
Takeover Bids, The Free-Rider Problem, and the Theory of the Corporation
It is commonly thought that a widely held corporation that is not being run in the interest of its shareholders will be vulnerable to a takeover bid. We show that this is false, since shareholders can free ride on the raider's improvement of the corporation, thereby seriously limiting the raider's profit. We analyze exclusionary devices that can be built into the corporate charter to overcome this free-rider problem. We study privately and social…
An Analysis of the Principal-Agent Problem
Most analyses of the principal-agent problem assume that the principal chooses an incentive scheme to maximize expected utility subject to the agent's utility being at a stationary point.An important paper of Mirrlees has shown that this approach is generally invalid.We present an alternative procedure.If the agent's preferences over income lotteries are independent of action, we show that the optimal way of implementing an action by the agent ca…
Unemployment with Observable Aggregate Shocks
A general equilibrium model of optimal employment contracts is developed where firms have better information about labor's marginal product than workers. It is optimal for the wage to be tied to the level of employment, to prevent the firm from falsely stating that the marginal product is low and cutting the wage. It is shown that an observed aggregate shock that leads to an interindustry shift in labor demand and that would have no effect on tot…
Monopolistic Competition in the Spirit of Chamberlin
Journal Article Monopolistic Competition in the Spirit of Chamberlin: Special Results Get access Oliver D. Hart Oliver D. Hart London School of Economics and Massachusetts Institute of Technology I have benefited from the comments of seminar participants at the London School of Economics, the Public Economics Workshop at Caesarea, Israel, May 1983, and the Universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania. I would also like to thank Kelvin Lancaster, Nick…
Price Destabilizing Speculation
It is sometimes asserted that rational speculative activity must result in more stable prices because speculators buy when prices are low and sell when they are high. This is incorrect. Speculators buy when the chances of price appreciation are high, selling when the chances are low. Speculative activity in an economy in which all agents are rational, have identical priors, and have access to identical information may destabilize prices, under an…
The Costs and Benefits of Ownership
Our theory of costly contracts emphasizes the contractual rights can by of two types: specific rights and residual rights. When it is costly to list all specific rights over assets in the contract, it may be optimal to let one party purchase all residual rights. Ownership is the purchase of these residual rights. When residual rights are purchased by one party, they are lost by a second party, and this inevitably creates distortions. Firm 1 purch…
Economics (6 works) · Microeconomics (5 works) · Economic theories and models (4 works) · Computer Science (2 works) · Finance (2 works) · Law and economics (2 works) · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems (2 works) · Mathematical economics (2 works) · Auction Theory and Applications (1 work) · Banking stability, regulation, efficiency (1 work)