¨Universitat MannheimEssays inOrganization Theory andPersonnel EconomicsInauguraldissertationzur Erlangung des akademischen Gradeseines Doktors der Wirtschaftswissenschaftender Universitat Mannheim¨Vorgelegt vonStefanie BrilonMannheim 2010Referent: Prof. Konrad Stahl, Ph.D.Koreferenten : Prof. Dr. Emmanuelle AuriolProf. Dr. Guido FriebelProf. Dr. Martin HellwigAbteilungssprecher: Prof. Dr. Tom KrebsTag der mundlichen Prufung: 4. Dezember 2009¨ ¨iiiAcknowledgementsI thank Emmanuelle Auriol, Martin Hellwig and Konrad Stahl fortheir encouragement and advice. Their suggestions and comments pro-vided me with many new insights, and I learned a lot from each of them.I am indebted to Patrick Bolton, Jacques Cr`emer, Mathias Dewatripont,Guido Friebel, Antoine Loeper, Paul Seabright, Elu von Thadden andJean Tirole for some very helpful comments in particular on Chapter 2and 3, as well as to my coauthor Frank Rosar for fruitful discussions onChapter 2.Moreover, I thank my fellow doctoral students and colleagues, inparticular Felix Bierbrauer, Johannes Gierlinger, Alia Gizatulina, Jorg¨Gutsche, Florian Mu¨ller, Philipp Weinschenk, and especially BaptisteMassenot for many helpful discussions. Furthermore, I would like tothank Brian Cooper for his language advice.