This paper examines the incentive provision when the agent can respond to risk by exerting effort to collect information about the underlying state and making corresponding decisions. Such effort is shown to be more valuable in a riskier environment and incentives can increase with “respondable” risk. The relation between incentives and risk is more positive when the agent's effort is more effective in collecting information or in acting upon it. Using data on chief executive officers (CEOs), I find that incentives for CEOs increase with industry-wide risk, a measure of respondable risk. The positive relation diminishes when the CEO is less able to collect information or is less effective in acting upon it.

By exploiting state-level variations in mortgage broker licensing regulations, we examine how licensing requirements affect mortgage loan performances and the mortgage origination market. Using data on private label securitized loans, we find that loans in states with a toughened broker licensing had a smaller increase in default rates. This effect is larger in the years leading up to the financial crisis, for borrowers with lower credit scores, cash-out-refinance loans, high-minority neighborhoods, and loans originated by nonbanks. The improved performance with toughened broker licensing is only partially reflected in loan pricing. Stronger broker licensing requirements have slightly positive effects on the mortgage approval rates, and are associated with overall less risky borrowers and loan characteristics in applications and in originations.