[4] He chaired[5] the Office of Health Economics Commission on Competition in the NHS, 2011–2012[6] and served as a member of the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration, 2015–2021.
[9] He also devised ways to estimate such models empirically without imposing stationarity, an essential step in predicting the short-run effects of tax policy changes (2).
[10][11] He additionally explored dynamic inconsistency in government policies (6),[12] the Laffer Curve (7),[13] and the impact of trade unions (9).
[15] One of his main concerns has been with different ways of motivating employees when important aspects of performance are not easily specified in an employment contract and their implications: high pay coupled with the threat of dismissal for unsatisfactory performance (efficiency wages) (4),[16][17] competition for promotion (5),[18][19][20][21] tournaments (8)[22] and repeated interaction over time (10),[23] which "showed that the optimal long-term contract can be replicated by a sequence of optimal static contracts when the agent's saving decision can be controlled by the principal.
[28] But when employees differ in abilities, competition for promotion may be open to influence activities and so distort allocation of employees to more senior jobs (21)[29][30][31] and efficient outcomes in the future prevent full separation of abilities when differences are sufficiently fine (26) in which "Malcomson provides a general analysis of relational contracts with persistent private information.
Other research with W. Bentley MacLeod has shown that the types of contracts used in many practical situations have properties that theory suggests are appropriate for protecting investments in general and specific assets (13).
[36][37] Research with other co-authors has shown how time-serving apprenticeships can mitigate incentive issues in training (22)[38] and the role for not-for-profit providers in provision of public sector services (27).
[39] Malcomson also analysed forms of contract appropriate for the provision of health services (23), (24)[40][41] and, most notably, the quality of care (16) and (17), developments surveyed in (20).
(3) "Corporate tax policy and the service life of capital equipment", Review of Economic Studies, 48(2), April 1981, 311–316.
ISBN 978-0-521-32156-3 EISBN 978-0-511-55959-4 doi:10.1017/CBO9780511559594.011 (6) "Dynamic inconsistency, rational expectations, and optimal government policy" (with Brian Hillier), Econometrica, 52(6), November 1984, 1437–1451.
Print ISSN 0022-3808 E-ISSN 1537-534X JSTOR 1830476 (12) "Implicit contracts, incentive compatibility, and involuntary unemployment" (with W. Bentley MacLeod), Econometrica, 57(2), March 1989, 447–480.
II, chapter 11 (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2017) ISBN 978-1-78536-443-3 https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/the-economic-theory-of-incentives-9781785364433.html (13) "Investments, holdup, and the form of market contracts" (with W. Bentley MacLeod), American Economic Review, 83(4), September 1993, 811–837.
Print ISSN 0734-306X E-ISSN 1537-5307 JSTOR 2535277 (15) "Contracts, hold-up, and labor markets", Journal of Economic Literature, 35(4), December 1997, 1916–1957.
ISBN 978-0-444-50188-2 doi:10.1016/S1573-4463(99)30021-3 (20) "Government purchasing of health services" (with Martin Chalkley) in Anthony J. Culyer and Joseph P. Newhouse (eds.
ISBN 978-0-444-50470-8 doi:10.1016/S1574-0064(00)80174-2 (21) "Performance, promotion, and the Peter Principle" (with James A. Fairburn), Review of Economic Studies, 68(1), January 2001, 45–66.
Print ISSN 0034-6527 EISSN 1467-937X doi:10.1111/1467-937X.00159 (22) "General training by firms, apprentice contracts, and public policy" (with James W. Maw and Barry McCormick), European Economic Review, 47(2), April 2003, 197–227.