Dynamic Costly State Verification

Wang, Cheng

Economic Theory Vol. 25 no. 4 (2005): 887-916.

I study a model of dynamic risk sharing with costly state verification (CSV). In the model, a risk neutral agent enters an infinitely repeated relationship with a risk averse agent. In each period, the risk averse agent receives a random income which is observed only by himself, unless the risk neutral agent engages in costly monitoring. I provide a set of characterizations for the optimal contract, and I show that CSV has interesting effects on the long run distribution of the agents' expected utilities.