In many real-life principal–agent relationships, informative signals about the agent’s action are not all immediately available, but only arrive over time. We obtain clear-cut predictions on how the duration of optimal compensation depends on the nature of information arrival as well as agent characteristics and derive implications for the maturity structure of securities in financial contracting settings.

If the agent is additionally risk-averse, payouts are contingent on performance exceeding a hurdle that is increasing over time. With bilateral risk neutrality and agent limited liability, optimal contracts are high-powered and stipulate at most two payout dates. By capturing this information benefit of deferral in terms of the likelihood ratio dynamics, our characterization covers general signal processes in a unified setting. The optimal timing of pay trades off the costs of deferred compensation arising from the agent’s relative impatience and potential consumption smoothing needs against the benefit of exploiting additional informative signals. In Jeffrey Archer's masterful hands, the reader is taken on a journey that they won't want to end, and when you turn the last page of this unforgettable yarn, you will be faced with a dilemma that neither you, nor Harry Clifton could have anticipated.This article characterizes optimal compensation contracts in principal-agent settings in which the consequences of the agent’s action are only observed over time.

Volume one takes us from the ravages of the Great War to the outbreak of the Second World War, when Harry must decide whether to take up a place at Oxford, or join the navy and go to war with Hitler's Germany. But it will be another twenty years before Harry discovers how his father really died, which will only lead him to question: who was his father? Is he the son of Arthur Clifton, a stevedore who worked in Bristol docks, or the first born son of a scion of West Country society, whose family owns a shipping line? 'Only Time Will Tell' covers the years from 1920 to 1940, and includes a cast of memorable characters that 'The Times' has compared to 'The Forsyte Saga'. The epic tale of Harry Clifton's life begins in 1920, with the chilling words, 'I was told that my father was killed in the war'. The 'Clifton Chronicles' is Jeffrey Archer's most ambitious work in four decades as an international bestselling author.

Only time will tell book