This paper explores a model of warranties in which moral hazard problems play a key role. The goal is to understand the important characteristics of warranties including their provision of incomplete insurance and the relationship between product quality and coverage. We analyze a model in which buyers and sellers take actions which affect a product’s performance. Since these actions are not cooperatively determined, an incentives problem arises. We characterize the optimal warranty contract and undertake comparative statics to determine the predicted correlation of warranty coverage and product quality.
This essay is concerned with a monopolist’s incentives to provide a high quality goods when some of its customers cannot observe quality prior to purchase. We show that if all buyers have the same tastes for quality, the monopolist will not try to take advantage of the poorly informed. When tastes differ, however, some quality randomization may become profitable as a means to loosen binding self-selection constraints. The profitability of randomization is shown to depend upon the relative degrees of risk aversion of the buyers and on the convexity of the firm’s cost of quality function. We view our results as pointing to some potential benefits from imperfect quality control.