Brief Bio: Fanis Tsoulouhas
is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School, the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign and the University of Athens. He received his Ph.D. at the
University of Illinois in 1993, where he also taught from 1987 to 1993 as
an Instructor and Lecturer. He was on the faculty of North Carolina State
University's Poole College of Management from 1993 to 2012. He came to UC
Merced in 2012 as one of the original hires in Management. He then furthered
his Management training at the Harvard Business School (P.L.D. 2017, D.I.
2016, L.N.V. 2016).
Research: Most of his research
deals with the implications of asymmetric information in agency problems.
He explores the limitations imposed by financial distress and commitment problems
on financial and labor contracts, as well as the strategic role of information
gathering and transmission. His work has focused on limited liability and
bankruptcy, on organizational design and performance pay, on offshoring, and
on applications of relative performance evaluation in areas such as executive
promotion and incentive contracting.
Education and Professional
Development:
Harvard
Business School: P.L.D.A. - EMBA alternative, 2017 (P.L.D.
- Executive Education Program in Business Administration, Change Management
and Innovation, 2017; D.I. - Executive Education Program in Disruptive
Innovation, 2016; L.N.V. - Executive Education Program in Launching
New Ventures, 2016). Certificate
of Specialization in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 2022 (Design
Thinking and Innovation, 2022, HBS Online; Negotiation Mastery, 2018,
HBX; Entrepreneurship Essentials, 2018, HBX).
"Bailing Out Conflicted
Sovereigns", with
Charles W. Calomiris. Journal of Financial Intermediation 51 (2022),
100979. To read the abstract and download a PDF click
here or here.
"Why do Countries
in Financial Distress Strategically Delay Seeking Help?"Journal
of Government and Economics 2 (2021), 100006. To read the abstract and
download a PDF click
here or
here.
Performance Pay
"Effort, Talent and Inequality
in a Small Open Economy", with Elias Dinopoulos and Gunnar Heins.
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 224 ( 2024), 248-265.
To read the abstract and download a PDF click
here. To download the Appendix
click here.
"Business Commonality,
Standardization and Product Cycles". The Journal of International
Trade & Economic Development 31(7) (2022), 1017-1040. To read the
abstract and download a PDF click
here or here.
To download the Appendix
click here.
"Performance Pay
and Offshoring",
with Elias Dinopoulos. Journal
of Economics and Management Strategy 25(2) (2016), 334-369. To read the
abstract and download a PDF click
here or
here.
Tournaments and Contests
"Advances in the Theory
and Applications of Contests and Tournaments: Introduction to the Special
Issue". Games 14(2): 27 (2023). To download a PDF click here.
The Special
Issue is available here.
"Global Innovation Contests",
with Elias Dinopoulos and Constantinos Syropoulos. Games 14(1):18 (2023).
To read the abstract and download a PDF click
here or here.
"Do Tournaments Solve
the Adverse Selection Problem?"Journal of Economics and
Management Strategy 26(3) (2017), 675-690. To read the abstract and download
a PDF click
here or here.
"Introduction to
the Special Issue on Tournaments and Contests", with Charles
Knoeber. International Journal of Industrial Organization 31(3) (2013),
195-197. To read the abstract and download a PDF click
here. The Special
Issue is available here.
"Are Tournaments Optimal
over Piece Rates under Limited Liability for the Principal?" with
Kosmas Marinakis. International Journal of Industrial Organization
31(3) (2013), 223-237. To read the abstarct and download a PDF click
here or here.
"A Comparison of
Cardinal Tournaments and Piece Rate Contracts with Liquidity Constrained Agents",
with Kosmas Marinakis. Journal of Economics 105(2) (2012), 161-190.
To read the abstract and download a PDF click
here or here.
"Hybrid Cardinal
Tournaments."Economics Bulletin 30(3) (2010), 2279-2288.
To read the abstract and
download a PDF click
here or here.
"Introduction to
the Symposium on Tournaments, Contests and Relative Performance Evaluation".
Journal of Economics and Management Strategy 19(3) (2010), 635-641. To
read the abstract and download a PDF click
here or here.
The Symposium
is available here.
"Tournaments with
Ex Post Heterogeneous Agents", with Kosmas Marinakis. Economics
Bulletin 4(41) (2007), 1-9. To read the abstract and download a PDF click
here or here.
The paper was on SSRN's
Top Ten download list for Theory.
"Contests to Become CEO:
Incentives, Selection and Handicaps", with Anup Agrawal and Charles
Knoeber. Lead paper in Economic Theory 30(2) (2007), 195-221. To read
the abstract and download a PDF file click
here or here.
"Are Outsiders Handicapped
in CEO Successions?" with Anup Agrawal and Charles Knoeber. Special Issue
on "Recent Developments in Corporate Governance" of the Journal
of Corporate Finance 12 (2006), 619-644. To read the abstract and download
a PDF file click
here or here.
"Regulating Broiler Contracts: Tournaments
versus Fixed Performance Standards", with Tomislav Vukina. American
Journal of Agricultural Economics 83(4) (2001), 1062-1073. To read the
abstract and download a PDF file click
here or here.
"Integrator Contracts with
Many Agents and Bankruptcy", with Tomislav Vukina. American Journal
of Agricultural Economics 81 (1999), 61-74. The paper received the Best
Paper Award, American Agricultural Economics Association, 2000. To download
a PDF file click
here or here.
"Do Tournaments Solve the Two-Sided
Moral Hazard Problem?"Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
40 (1999), 275-294. To read the abstract and download a PDF file click
here or
here.
Organizational Structure and
Agent Behavior
"The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly: Agent Behavior and Efficiency in Open and Closed Organizations",with Duncan Holthausen. Economic Theory 35(1) (2008), 73-97. To
read the abstract and download a PDF file click
here or here.
An earlier version (with three behavioral types) is available here.
Information Gathering/Transmission
"Gathering Information Before
Signing a Contract with a Privately Informed Principal", with Claudio
Mezzetti. International Journal of Industrial Organization 18
(2000), 667-689. To read the abstract and download a PDF file click
here or
here.
"Strategic Transmission of
Information and Short-Term Commitment". with Charles M. Kahn. Economic
Theory 14 (1999), 131-153. To read the abstract and download a PDF file
click here.
Financial and Labor Contracts:
One-sided Commitment and Optimality of Debt Contracts
"Renegotiation-Proof Labor
and Credit Contracts with Worker Mobility". Economica 66
(1999), 433-454. To read the abstract and download a PDF file click
here or here.
"Labor and Credit Contracts
with Asymmetric Information and Bankruptcy". European Economic
Review 40 (1996), 1665-1682. To read the abstract and download a PDF file
click
here or
here.
Demography and Technology:
Boserup vs Malthus
"A New Look at Demographic
and Technological Changes". Explorations in Economic History
29 (1992), 169-203. To download a PDF file click
here or here.
Other Selective Publications
"Game Theory". In
R. McAuliffe (Ed.), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management, Volume V,
Managerial Economics. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell (1997).
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
1987-1993
EC 273: Intermediate Econometrics
EC 173: Introductory Econometrics
EC 172: Economics and Business Statistics