Supplier incentives and resource constraints under uncertainty

Procurement in environments of cost uncertainty and asymmetric information require special arrangements such as the linear incentive contract. Usually the buyer is motivated to make investments that can relieve temporary supplier resource constraints during the procurement. Special problems arise, however, due to interactions between investments in suppliers and the risk-incentive trade-off achieved by the incentive contract. A cost signaling model is proposed to overcome these problems, where a supplier offers an equity share in the profit from the incentive contract to the buyer in return for a priori investment. The equity share signals the supplier's private cost information, and forms the basis for the buyer's investment decision. Under equilibrium the buyer can expect to recover the entire amount provided to the supplier through his or her share of the profit.     

Timing of information in agency problems with hidden actions

This paper endogenizes in a standard hidden action model the point in time when a risk neutral and wealth constrained agent and the principal observe the realization of an additional signal: before the agent’s effort choice (ex ante information) or after (ex post information). In a decision problem, ex ante information does (weakly) better than ex post information because the decision maker can tailor efforts to the information. We show that this is not the case for incentive problems: a negative incentive effect arises under ex ante information that prevails even though the principal tailors the agent’s effort to the information.     

Risk-Taking Incentives: A Review of the Literature

Abstract. Incentive structures affect people's decisions. But what are the implications of the resulting choices that people make for the level of risk within the economy? This paper reviews the literature in this area and attempts to draw out practical work that can be taken forward in assessing risk‐taking incentives in the UK. Understanding the principal–agent problem is key to explaining many of the incentive structures that emerge. The paper provides an exposition of this before considering its implications in the managerial and financial markets. Within both these markets the paper considers how incentive structures alter principals' behaviour, before considering possible solutions to the common problem of asymmetric information. The paper concludes that the implications for risk‐taking are unclear, as incentive structures can lead to both increased and decreased risk‐taking. It therefore makes a number of suggestions for future research into the effect of incentive structures in existence in the UK.     

Dynamic contracting under imperfect public information and asymmetric beliefs

We develop a dynamic principal–agent model to show how imperfect public information and asymmetric beliefs about payoff-relevant parameters, agency conflicts, and the agent's implicit incentives to influence the principal's posterior beliefs through his unobservable actions interact to affect optimal dynamic contracts. We make a methodological contribution to the literature by solving the continuous-time contracting problem using a discrete-time approximation approach. We obtain a simple characterization of optimal renegotiation-proof contracts in terms of the solution to a nonlinear ordinary differential equation (ODE). We then exploit the properties of the ODE to derive a number of novel implications for the dynamics of long-term contracts that alter the intuition gleaned from the previous literature. Optimism has a first-order impact on incentives, investment and output that could reconcile the “private equity” puzzle. Consistent with empirical evidence, the interaction between asymmetric beliefs, risk-sharing and adverse selection costs could cause the time-paths of the agent's incentive intensities to be increasing or decreasing. Our results also suggest that the incorporation of imperfect public information and asymmetric beliefs could potentially reconcile empirical evidence of an ambiguous relation between risk and incentives, and a non-monotonic relation between firm value and incentives. Permanent and transitory components of risk have differing effects on incentives, which suggest that empirical investigations of the link between risk and incentives should appropriately account for different components of risk.     

战略激进、市场化进程与企业融资约束——基于A股制造业上市公司的实证数据

以2011—2020年沪深A股制造业上市公司为样本,引入市场化进程为调节变量实证检验企业战略激进度与融资约束的关系。研究发现：战略越激进的企业面临的融资约束问题越严重。在市场化的影响下,研究发现在市场化进程越高的地区,正相关关系越显著。从产权异质性角度分析,非国有企业中这两个问题更加显著。经过机制检验,代理成本、经营风险和信息不对称在战略激进度影响融资约束的过程中均起到了中介作用。本文的研究从理论上丰富了公司战略管理与企业财务行为交叉领域的研究,研究结论有助于完善企业融资决策背后更深的战略逻辑。此外,对于现阶段制造业企业而言,科学的市场机制对引导企业战略决策和融资行为具有较强的现实意义。     

Rational Inefficiencies

In this paper, we suggest that inefficiency may be an indirect, on-the-job compensation to agents in an organization. We show how to use actual production data to reveal the trade-offs between different inefficiencies (slacks). Moreover, we discuss how to use this to improve productivity analysis as well as decision making and incentive provisions in organizations.     

非对称信息下供应链协调激励机制研究

建立了非线性需求下两级供应链模型,利用博弈论和委托-代理理论分别设计了对称信息和非对称信息下供应链协调激励机制,分析了非对称信息对供应链协调激励机制的影响,并进行数值分析与模型验证,最后得出研究结论。     

Quality incentive contract design in government procurement of public services under dual asymmetric information

In the process of government procurement of public services (GPPS), adverse selection and moral hazard caused by dual asymmetric information can damage public interests and negatively affect the quality of public services. To improve the quality of GPPS, in this study, quality incentive contract models under the condition of dual asymmetric information are designed. These models are based on the optimal incentive contract model in principal–agent theory. The results show that under dual asymmetric information conditions, incentive contracts designed for a continuous type of service capability can identify and stimulate the service abilities of social organizations.     

On incentive compatibility and budget balancedness in public decision making

Holmström (Groves' schemes on restricted domains,Econometrica 47, 1979, pp. 1137–1144) showed for public decision making problems with a smoothly connected domain of preferences that Groves' schemes are the unique direct revelation mechanisms satisfying incentive compatibility. This paper provides necessary and sufficient conditions on the domain of preferences for which these Groves' schemes are the unique incentive compatible transfer schemes when the number of alternatives is finite. Furthermore, we give an example of a decision making problem that arises from a sequencing problem for which budget balanced Groves' schemes exist and show that these transfer schemes are not individually rational.     

基于委托代理理论的第三方物流中的激励机制分析

根据委托代理理论,增加信息激励这一变量,建立第三方物流中物流外包方与物流提供商之间的委托代理关系模型,分析了第三方物流中由于信息不对称而产生的道德风险问题及其激励机制设计问题。并通过对物流外包方代理成本和物流提供商激励报酬强度系数影响因素的进一步分析,指出构建物流服务提供商激励机制必须反映物流服务提供商的特质、外部环境条件的变化以及外包方代理成本等因素的影响。     

On the Use of Collateral

This paper surveys existing explanations for the pervasive use of collateral in credit markets and relates them to the empirical evidence on the subject. Collateral may be used as a screening or an incentive device in markets characterized by various forms of asymmetric and biased information. The evidence is incompatible with the use of collateral as a signal of projects' quality, while broadly consistent with explanations based on its incentive properties and asymmetric evaluation of projects.     

供应链风险分析及决策模型

供应链管理对企业参与市场竞争有诸多优势,但由于市场的不确定性、合作企业信息的不对称性及其他随机因素的影响导致供应链存在很大风险.笔者分析了供应链基于成本型的风险因素,并根据不确定多属性决策理论提出了供应链决策模型.     

The New InstitutionalismContradictory Notions of Change

This article suggests that the new institutionalism contains ambiguous and contradictory notions of change. By setting up a model that explains institutional constraints on decision makers, the new institutionalism correctly points out the limits of a rational choice framework of economic decision making. However, by failing to explain the sources and avenues of modifications of those constraints, the new institutionalism is unable to provide a satisfactory explanation of change. Instead, we find a patchwork of exogenous factors, such as technology, culture, and ideology, which feed into institutional change in unclear ways. This paper reaches the conclusion that those factors for change should be examined directly, rather than through the proxy of institutions.     

引入自有品牌的供应链激励机制设计研究

针对引入自有品牌的供应链激励机制设计问题,首先在对称信息和非对称信息下建立由两个制造商和一个零售商组成的供应链激励机制模型,接着分析引入自有品牌的供应链激励机制均衡结果,最后对自有品牌引入前后的均衡结果进行比较。通过分析发现,零售商在制造商品牌上的努力水平始终不超过其在自有品牌上的努力水平;在对称信息下,零售商引入自有品牌肯定会使制造商受到损失,而在非对称信息下制造商可能会从中获利。     

基于非对称信息的闭环供应链激励合同策略研究

在价格敏感的随机需求量和与回收努力敏感的回收量条件下,假定供、销双方销售价格和分销商回收努力程度信息不对称,建立基于销量和废品回收量的双重激励机制,给出供应商为吸引分销商选择对自己最有利的售价和努力程度而设计的最优激励合同,比较了不同信息条件下供销双方的策略。     

Effects of greenwashing on financial performance: Moderation through local environmental regulation and media coverage

Recent research suggests that the effect of greenwashing and corporate financial performance (CFP) is ambiguous. This call for study the contextual factors that create contingencies in the greenwashing–CFP relationship. Using a sample of 2816 observations covering 735 Chinese-listed firms in 21 different industries from 2013 to 2017, this research examines the effect of greenwashing on CFP and explores the moderating effects of local environmental regulation, media visibility and media favourability. Results show that greenwashing positively affects CFP and effect weakened with stringent environmental regulations and reversed with low media favourability. Our finding implies that stakeholders could hardly identify greenwashing in the context of an emerging economy with high-level information asymmetry. However, local environmental regulation and negative media coverage could reduce this information asymmetry, making greenwashing easier to be identified. It is the first study to investigate greenwashing–CFP relationship from institutional environment perspective.     

基于委托代理理论的军用软件定价模型

对于军用定制软件,通常采用成本导向法进行定价。但是,现有方法在设置成本分担率这一参数时,没有考虑道德风险的影响,导致无法有效激励承包商降低成本。文章分析了军用软件采办中的委托代理关系,利用委托代理理论,分别在信息对称和信息不对称两种情况下,建立了军用软件的目标成本激励定价模型;通过模型的优化,确定了使军方期望效用最大化的成本分担率参数;最后给出了一个算例,并对相关参数变化对采办费用的影响情况进行了分析。实例分析表明,在信息不对称的条件下,可以通过在合同中引入激励机制,使承包商做出更大的努力,以达到控制采办费用的目的。     

销售商成本信息不对称下的两阶段供应链协调

以往的文章研究了由单个供应商和单个销售商组成的供应链协调问题,给出了双方合作时的供应链协调模型,这些都是以信息共享为基础,但是现实中信息不对称使得供应链协调模型的有效性受到了冲击。为避免这种现象的发生,论文在双方合作的基础上建立了供应链双方在需求信息不对称情形下的协调模型。该模型在供应链双方协商分享供应链利润的条件下,运用激励机制使销售商诚实申报成本信息,在实现供应链利润最大化的同时使供应链成员实现双赢。     

不对称信息条件下高校教师激励机制的契约分析

本文运用契约经济学的研究方法对不对称信息条件下高校教师的激励机制设计进行了分析,发现学校对教师的激励机制能否取得最佳效果取决于教师能力、风险厌恶程度,工作结果的不确定性以及教师对进修学习成本承担的比例。研究发现利用”标尺竞争”原理改进后的激励契约可以进一步提高对教师的激励强度,降低学校的代理成本。最后本文对高校教师激励机制设计给出一些具体的建议。     

Strategic real options under asymmetric information

This paper studies the effect of private information on the capital allocation decisions of firms who operate under imperfect competition. I analyze two interactive firms, one with private information and the other without, who must decide when to undertake an irreversible and uncertain investment decision. Traditional non-strategic models of irreversible investment under uncertainty involve a single decision maker and result in an optimal period of delay before the investment is undertaken. In a strategic setting, firms must balance their desire to delay against competitive advantages from early investment. I find that an equilibrium may not exist within the standard continuous framework when the private information is over revenues. Moreover, when an equilibrium does exist the competitive pressures from the uninformed firm are weak. This is in contrast to existing models with asymmetric information over costs, where an equilibrium always exists and the competitive pressures remain strong (Hsu and Lambrecht, 2007). This work shows that the investment timing decision, and thus the value of the private information, is highly sensitive to the nature of incomplete information.