Most results in what can be termed the comparative statics of risk aversion are obtained when there is only one source of uncertainty. The primary example (which originally motivated the definition of risk aversion) is that more risk averse people are willing to pay a higher premium for insuring against risk. It is known that the results do not generally carry over when there is another source of uncertainty. The paper develops conditions under which comparative statics results are robust against the introduction of additional sources of uncertainty.

It is of interest to know when the incentive compatibility conditio n in principal-agent problems can be replaced by the condition that the agent's expected utility be stationary in effort. The Mirrlees-Rogerson conditions do not work if the principal can observe more than one observable statistic. Also, the Mirrlees-Rogerson assumption that the distribution function of output is convex in the agent's action is unsatisfactory even in the context of the basi c model; it is too restrictive. The paper presents a suite of conditio ns that are applicable to the multistatistic case and replaces the objectionable convex distribution function assumption.

The paper uses a simple multitask career concern model in order to analyse the incentives of government agencies' officials. Incentives are impaired by the agency pursuing multiple missions. A lack of focus is even more problematic in the case of fuzzy missions, that is when outsiders are uncertain about the exact nature of the missions actually pursued by the agency. Consequently agencies pursuing multiple missions receive less autonomy. The paper further shows that professionalization creates a sense of mission for the agency, and that the specialization of officials raises their incentives. Last, the paper compares its predictions with the stylized facts on Government bureaucracies.

Many incentives in organizations arise not through explicit formal incentive contracts but rather implicitly through career concerns. This paper models career concerns through agents trying to manipulate the market assessment of their future productivity. The information flow from current actions to market assessment is therefore crucial in determining the nature of these incentives. Improved information may either increase or reduce incentives. The impact of information provides a major distinction between the explicit and implicit incentives model. The paper derives general results on comparisons of information structures which serve as counterparts to the standard results on information structures in the principal-agent model: sufficient statistic, impact of a Blackwell garbling, comparison of inclusive information structures.