基于正式契约和关系契约的BPO治理机制研究

契约结构选择恰当与否直接关系到企业业务流程外包(BPO)成败及绩效的高低。本文运用交易成本理论和关系契约理论,揭示了BPO的契约特征及契约选择机理,认为在外包绩效不可验证的情况下,关系契约可以弥补正式契约的不足,进而提出了基于正式契约和关系契约的BPO治理机制的概念模型,为我国企业发展BPO提出了建议。     

Risky business: Institutions vs. social networks in FDI

Political economy scholarship on foreign direct investment (FDI) emphasizes variation in host country political risk but overlooks variation in investors' sensitivity to political risk. We show that relational contracting, relationship‐based contract enforcement, is more efficient for high‐risk, human capital‐intensive activities for which the costs of writing legally enforceable contracts are prohibitive. We disaggregate FDI into two distinct varieties: mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and venture capital (VC). We propose that VC flows are less sensitive to host institutions but correlate strongly with skilled migrant networks that monitor compliance and impose reputational costs. Our empirical analysis of dyadic VC and M&A flows covers over 100 countries during 1980–2009. We address other mechanisms through which migrant networks facilitate FDI and verify our results hold at the country‐industry level. These findings suggest that relational contracting facilitates global integration of dynamic, knowledge‐intensive industries even when formal institutions are weak.     

公共建设项目中合同策略及其关系行为测量研究

公共建设项目合同策略的制定往往忽视了关系治理对承包人机会主义行为的抑制作用,造成合同策略侧重于单一的控制功能,不利于合同的事后履约。根据项目治理理论,项目缔约全过程中契约治理与关系治理存在交互作用,因而,合同策略必然包含两者间的互动关系。首先通过扎根分析,明确了公共建设项目合同策略是一个组合型构念,包括承包人选择、合同策略重点及防范问题方式3个维度;然后,利用关系行为量表,对合同策略中3个维度对应的关系行为进行测量,明确各参与方在合同缔约各阶段采取的具体关系行为;最后,结合访谈数据对关系行为测量结果进行分析。结果发现：在缔约全过程中,承包人对待关系行为始终处于积极状态,业主方采取关系行为则存在一定的障碍。研究结果为公共建设项目关系治理的使用提供了依据,同时也为各参与方采取合理的关系行为提供指导。     

INPUT QUALITY,RELATIONAL CONTRACTS AND INTERNATIONAL OUTSOURCING

Abstract. This paper presents a Ricardian trade model in which the quality of intermediate inputs affects the productivity of labour at the final production stage. The role of contracting frictions is shown by comparing the chain of comparative advantage obtained with full information with that resulting when the quality of inputs is affected by actions that are not verifiable in court. Conditions are derived under which parties can use the potential for repeat business (relational contracts) to sustain efficient production choices. These results yield predictions for how country and industry characteristics will affect the level of contracting frictions.     

Optimal fiscal and monetary policies in the face of rare disasters

This paper studies optimal fiscal and monetary policies in an economy exposed to large adverse shocks (rare disasters). We contrast optimal policies under commitment and discretion and identify several striking differences between these institutional environments. A government that can commit to its policy plans relies heavily on debt to smooth the adverse effects of large shocks over time. Lack of commitment seriously limits the government's ability to use debt as a shock absorber. Under discretion, an increase in debt leads to an increase in inflation expectations and therefore higher nominal interest rate distortions. Hence, the discretionary government keeps debt in close vicinity of its steady-state level, and the response of taxes, inflation, and interest rates to shocks is much more pronounced under discretion than under commitment. This is particularly relevant for large shocks and when the initial stock of government debt is already high at the time the shock occurs. We also argue that the adverse welfare effects of disasters are larger under discretion than under commitment, but these welfare differentials can be significantly reduced by making the discretionary government inflation averse.     

Relational Contracting in Developed Economies: Lessons From Slot Exchanges in the US Airline Industry

This paper highlights the widespread use of relational contracting in developed economies. While the number of empirical studies on relational practices in developing countries is increasing rapidly, evidence from industries and countries characterised by strong institutions is lagging behind due to data constraints. We argue that technological progress and strong institutions do not diminish the use of relational contracting, and use the US airline industry as a case in point. In particular, we discuss a number of factors (including transaction complexity, existence of collaborative relationships and data availability) that make this industry an ideal setting to study relational contracting in a developed economy. Moreover, we argue that other industries in developed countries share the properties of the US airline industry and, hence, can be used as a basis to investigate relational contracting in future work.     

Contractual governance,business groups and transition

We suggest a unified framework to explain the following stylized pattern in the development of contractual governance and industrial organization. Contractual governance in many emerging economies is characterized by relational contracting. Coincident with relational contracts are large, diversified organizations — often referred to as business groups. As institutions and market intermediaries develop, a process of transition from relational contracting to arms‐length explicit contracting takes place. During this phase relational and explicit contracts complement each other. Business groups initially expand in size, scope and increase the strength of ties. As development proceeds, a threshold is crossed after which business groups begin to unravel. This process of transition in contractual governance is often accompanied by a period of rapid growth, which eventually comes to a stop. JEL classification: L22, L14, O17.     

制度环境约束下的企业绩效分析——基于中国东北地区企业的实证研究

针对中国转型时期的经济增长之谜,现有研究分别基于社会关系和分权制度进行探讨。本文综合上述两种观点,将社会关系和正式制度微观化为企业的关系资本和制度资本,并进一步把关系资本细分为商业关系资本和政治关系资本,从而将宏观制度环境纳入到微观企业绩效的分析框架中。实证研究采用基于残差正态分布的有序选择模型对东北地区313家企业进行回归分析,我们发现:商业关系资本与绩效水平和绩效增长均显著正相关;政治关系资本与绩效增长呈倒U型曲线关系;制度资本与绩效水平呈二次曲线关系,而其与商业关系资本的综合效应能够显著提升企业绩效水平,促进绩效增长。     

A difficulty with the “command” allocation mechanism

This paper studies the implementation of taut economic plans under uncertainty in a simple dynamic model of resource allocation. It argues that the “command” mechanism is unable to control the stochastic system, causing unexpected shocks to accumulate, disrupting the production process and leading to increasing divergence between plan and performance. The principal source of this problem is lack of feedback from the state of the system to the allocation decision. Two market-like mechanisms are also analized. Both stabilize the system and minimize the impact of uncertainty on its performance, showing that the difficulty is indeed with the “command” allocation mechanism.     

A comparison of cardinal tournaments and piece rate contracts with liquidity constrained agents

A celebrated result in the theory of tournaments is that relative performance evaluation (tournaments) is a superior compensation method to absolute performance evaluation (piece rate contracts) when the agents are risk-averse, the principal is risk-neutral or less risk-averse than the agents and production is subject to common shocks that are large relative to the idiosyncratic shocks. This is because tournaments get closer to the first best by filtering common uncertainty. This paper shows that, surprisingly, tournaments are superior even when agents are liquidity constrained so that transfers to them cannot fall short of a predetermined level. The rationale is that, by providing insurance against common shocks through a tournament, payments to the agents in unfavorable states increase and payments in favorable states decrease which enables the principal to satisfy tight liquidity constraints for the agents without paying any ex ante rents to them, while simultaneously providing higher-power incentives than under piece rates. The policy implication of our analysis is that firms should adopt relative performance evaluation over absolute performance evaluation regardless of whether the agents are liquidity (wealth) constrained or not.     

市场互联性、关系型合约与经济转型

本文通过将单一市场的关系型合约推广到互联的关系型合约,刻画了社会分工程度(市场范围)与微观治理机制(基于关系型合约的治理还是基于正式合约的治理)之间的互动关系:基于何种合约来治理受市场范围的影响,市场范围越小,关系型合约越重要,正式合约越不重要;反之则反是。特别地,从这个视角看,计划经济向市场经济转型的过程,是劳动分工不断深化和市场范围不断扩大的过程,在微观治理上是一个从互联的关系型合约不断向正式合约过渡的过程。中国的渐进式改革之所以成功,很大程度上是由于渐进式改革使原来自我实施的关系型合约没有受到很大程度的破坏,在正式合约缺位时,关系型合约仍然能够维持社会经济的运行;俄罗斯的激进式改革几乎在一夜之间破坏了自我实施的关系型合约的可维持性,而短期内又不可能建立依赖正式合约的治理模式,出现了微观治理失效。本文还解释了中国经济在缺乏正式的法律和产权体系下取得骄人绩效的“悖论”,即由于关系型合约的自我实施性,因而并不需要相应的正式制度安排。本文总体上支持“后华盛顿共识”的渐进改革路径,并为其提供了动态的微观机制。     

国际制度的形式选择——一个基于国家间交易成本的模型

根据制度化水平的三个维度,国际制度安排的基本形式可分为非正式协议、自我实施的正式协议、一般的正式国际组织和超国家组织。那么,缔约国如何在上述国际制度安排形式之间进行选择?本文尝试从国家间交易成本的角度为这一问题提供一个解释模型。国家间交易成本包括国家间治理成本与国家间缔约成本两个部分。国家间治理成本随着制度化水平的提高而递减,国家间缔约成本随着制度化水平的提高而递增。缔约国在选择国际制度安排形式时,将在国家间治理成本与国家间缔约成本之间进行权衡。作为理性的国际行为主体,缔约国在交易收益给定的情况下,将选择使国家间交易成本最小化的国际制度安排形式。根据这一制度选择模型,本文进一步提出了分别涉及问题领域敏感性、国家同质性、透明度、资产专用性、不确定性和交易频率的六个假说。     

GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM ANALYSIS OF HOLD‐UP PROBLEM AND NON‐EXCLUSIVE FRANCHISE CONTRACT

In this paper, we develop a general equilibrium model that examines the emergence of non‐exclusive franchise contracts in the presence of the franchisor hold‐up problem. Our model of an endogenous franchising network underscores the trade‐off between the cost associated with specifying and enforcing the contractual terms and the cost associated with broadening the relationships with multiple franchisors. We show that when the contracting cost relative to the relational cost is high and when the economies of specialization is low, a non‐exclusive franchise contract is an optimal contractual arrangement to mitigate franchisor opportunism.     

Long‐Term Contracts,Irreversibility, and Uncertainty

Long‐term contracting implies contracting based on expected future demand. In this paper, I develop a multiperiod procurement model where, once the actual level of demand is realized, the irreversible initial provision level may be supplemented by additional provisions. This paper shows that, with the possibility of additional upward adjustments, the first‐period provision level will be lower than when no additional adjustments are possible. This reduction in first‐period provision level is higher under complete contracting than under incomplete contracting, and because of the reduction in information rents it yields a higher expected utility to the principal but lower total welfare.     

A theory of the non-neutrality of money with banking frictions and bank recapitalization

The unconventional monetary policy actions of the Federal Reserve during the recent Global Financial Crisis often involve implicit subsidies to banks. This paper offers a theory of the non-neutrality of money associated with capital injection into banks via nominal transfers, in an environment where banking frictions are present in the sense that there exists an agency problem between banks and their private-sector creditors. The analysis is conducted within a general equilibrium setting with two-sided financial contracting. We first show that even with perfect nominal flexibility, the recapitalization policy has real effects on the economy. We then introduce banking riskiness shocks and study optimal policy responses to such shocks.     

The mediating roles of governance mechanisms and knowledge transfer on the relationship between specific investments and cooperative innovation performance

This study seeks to understand the influence of specific investments (SIs) to cooperative innovation performance (CIP) by examining the mediating roles of knowledge transfer (KT) and governance mechanisms (GMs), including formal contracts (FCs) and relational trust (RT). A sample of 238 projects is used to test the proposed model through structural equation modelling. The results show SIs act indirectly through RT to influence CIP. KT plays a mediating role between the two GMs and CIP. Moreover, the results suggest that the mediating effect of KT between FCs and performance is full; however its effect between RT and performance is only partial, and the mediating effect of RT between SIs and performance is also partial.     

Human resource management and productivity in the “trust game corporation”

Contemporary production activity is crucially determined by the performance of complex tasks with the characteristics of corporate trust games. In this paper, we outline a productivity paradox showing that, under reasonable conditions, the noncooperative solution, which yields a suboptimal firm output, is the equilibrium of corporate trust games when relational preferences are not sufficiently high. We show that tournaments and steeper pay for performance schemes may crowd out cooperation in the presence of players preferences for relational goods. These findings help to explain firm investment in workers’ relationships and the puzzle on the less than expected use of such schemes.     

基于SNA的PPP项目中信任影响因素研究

为提升PPP项目中信任度,构建了社会网络分析模型,将影响信任的主要因素视为社会网络的节点,采用调查问卷方法,统计了有关数据,研究公私合作中信任随各影响因素变动而产生的变化情况。使用Ucinet6软件进行分析,结果表明,信任作为关系契约中的重要部分随影响因素而变化,为提高PPP项目合作绩效,应重视关系契约的作用,重视信任的影响因素及其内在联系,正式契约在PPP项目中的作用不容忽视,但关系契约更有利于保证公私间长期与高效的合作关系。     

The effect of the financial crisis on the retirement plans of older workers in England

This letter revisits the question of how wealth shocks influence retirement behaviour, exploiting the dramatic changes in UK asset prices between 2008 and 2009 as a source of such shocks. We find no evidence that the wealth shocks arising from this recent financial crisis affected the retirement plans of older workers in England.     

MONETARY AND FISCAL POLICY EFFICIENCY AND COORDINATION IN A MULTI‐SECTOR OPEN‐ECONOMY GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM MODEL

The paper analyzes monetary and fiscal stabilization and coordination in a multi‐sector stochastic new open economy macroeconomics (NOEM) model. It first aims to assess the capacity of fiscal and monetary policy to reduce or eliminate the negative welfare effects of an unanticipated productivity shock affecting some or all of the sectors in each country. Second, it evaluates the possible gains from international monetary cooperation as well as the impact of active fiscal policy on the welfare performance of monetary policy. The setup also allows for international asymmetry concerning the uncertainty over the shocks. The results show that monetary and fiscal policies are efficient tools of stabilization and under several conditions they can replicate the flexible‐price equilibrium. However, their welfare performance is not necessarily increased when both monetary and fiscal policies react to shocks at the national level. The existence of bilateral gains from monetary cooperation depends on the degree of asymmetry concerning the uncertainty over the shocks.