| Abstract: | This dissertation studies central topics of the theory of contracts including incomplete contracts, transaction costs, ownership, incentive schemes, and asymmetric information between principles and agents. The first essay, entitled "Background: The Theory of The Firm", provides a selective survey of the study of ownership in Industrial Organization and reviews prominent research in the theory of signalling. The second essay, entitled "Contracting, Ownership, and Signalling", provides a model to show that transaction costs and signalling considerations can determine principals' choices of ownership structures when hiring agents. The last essay, entitled "Alternative Contractual Forms", provides a more general discussion on the stochastic efforts of an agent under various incentive schemes and analyzes the comparative advantages between these compensation systems. |
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