The Scope of Anonymous Voluntary Bargaining Under Asymmetric Information

We present a model of anonymous collective bargaining where individuals'preferences and information may be significantly interdependent. We showthat the bargaining outcome becomes independent of individuals'preferences and information as the bargaining group increases in size. As acorollary, we show that anonymous voluntary bargaining completely fails inlarge groups. Either the difference between the bargaining outcome and thestatus quo vanishes as the size of the group becomes larger, or, thebargaining becomes coercive and results in a violation of at least someindividuals' rights. The result provides a rationale for the inherentdifficulty of reform in the presence of asymmetric information.
There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful ofsuccess, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order ofthings.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (1532)     

Property Rights and Efficiency of Voluntary Bargaining under Asymmetric Information

We show that in public good problems under asymmetric information, the success of voluntary bargaining is closely related to the structure of property rights. We characterize property rights structures and mediated bargaining procedures that either lead to an efficient voluntary resolution to public good problems, or achieve the efficient outcome but slightly coerce the agents into participation. In this respect, we identify efficient property rights structures.     

Reinforcement-Based Adaptive Learning in Asymmetric Two-Person Bargaining with Incomplete Information

The sealed bidk-double auction is a mechanism used to structure bilateral bargaining under two-sided incomplete information. This mechanism is tested in two experiments in which subjects are asked to bargain repeatedly for 50 rounds with the same partner under conditions of information disparity favoring either the buyer (Condition BA) or seller (Condition SA). Qualitatively, the observed bid and offer functions are in agreement with the Bayesian linear equilibrium solution (LES) constructed by Chatterjee and Samuelson (1983). A trader favored by the information disparity, whether buyer or seller, receives a larger share of the realized gain from trade than the other trader. Comparison with previous results reported by Daniel, Seale, and Rapoport (1998), who used randomly matched rather than fixed pairs, shows that when reputation effects are present this advantage is significantly enhanced. A reinforcement-based learning model captures the major features of the offer and bid functions, accounting for most of the variability in the round-to-round individual decisions.     

Equilibrium Partner Switching in a Bargaining Model With Asymmetric Information

We study a model in which the seller of an indivisible object faces two potential buyers and makes an offer to either of them in each period. We find that the seller's ability to extract surplus from them depends crucially on the value of the cost of switching from one buyer to the next. If the seller is pessimistic about the buyers' valuations and there is a switching cost, however small, then the market is a natural bilateral monopoly; the second buyer is never called on. If the switching cost is zero, or if the seller is optimistic, then switching, and possibly recall of the original buyer, may occur.     

Regulating a Polluting Firm Under Asymmetric Information

This paper reinterprets the Laffont-Tirole model of regulation under asymmetric information to cover the case of pollution control. The asymmetry of information concerns the firm's cost of lowering its pollution. The regulator has three objectives: Ensuring an efficient abatement level, generating 'green taxes' and securing the survival of the firm. We show that when optimal abatement is important relative to tax generation, the regulator cannot use the policy of offering the firm a set of linear tax schemes from which to choose. By contrast, this policy is optimal in the Laffont-Tirole model under certain not very restrictive assumptions. We proceed to establish a simple rule for when to shut-down inefficient types. In an example with specific functional forms, we derive the optimal tax function both analytically and graphically. We show the effect on the optimal tax system of a change in a technological parameter.     

Security Innovation on Several Assets Under Asymmetric Information

The paper examines the optimal innovation of securities by an issuer who is endowed with several risky assets and private information on one of the assets. Assuming that the degree of asymmetric information between the issuer and the outside investor is large, we show that the issuer restricts the number of securities that he creates. We also show that the payoff of the security created by the issuer is not closely correlated, and is sometimes completely uncorrelated, with the payoff of the asset that is subject to the asymmetric information, depending on the hedging needs and the accuracy of information.
JEL Classification Numbers: D52, D82, G20.     

Search, Bargaining, Money, and Prices Under Private Information

This paper presents a model of money and search where bargaining determines prices and the quality of goods is private information. It studies how a lemons problem affects the purchasing power of money. There are multiple, Pareto-ranked equilibria. The superior equilibrium, where no lemons are produced, exists even if information about quality is relatively scarce. In other equilibria, there is price dispersion, and uninformed buyers pay higher prices than informed buyers for all goods. Taxing money balances (a proxy for inflation) makes buyers less selective, thus reducing the average quality of supply and the premium paid for known quality.     

Optimal Border Policies for Invasive Species Under Asymmetric Information

This paper analyzes the problem faced by a border protection agency if endogenous exporter abatement activities affect invasive species risk, allowing for unobservable differences in abatement cost. We show how the optimal inspection/penalty regime differs from the symmetric information case. Departing from previous literature, we allow for technical assistance, a policy instrument specifically permitted and commonly employed under Article 9 of the World Trade Organization Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement. We find the information asymmetry can make it optimal for the importing country to provide technical assistance grants for exporter risk abatement, even if it would otherwise be inefficient. Further, we show that fungibility of technical assistance with inputs in other sectors of the exporting economy affects the qualitative nature of optimal policy. If technical assistance has no outside value in the exporter’s country, optimal policy is characterized by a menu of contracts balancing higher tariffs with lower penalties for being caught with an invasive. If technical assistance can be used in other sectors of the exporter’s economy, it can introduce countervailing incentives making a uniform tariff/penalty combination optimal.     

信息不对称资本市场的实验研究

我们采用经济学实验研究方法构建了信息不对称的实验室资本市场,研究信息是否可以通过市场迅速传递。实验结果表明,在信息不对称的情况下,资本市场是非有效的;市场对信息的传递和价格反应是有条件的而且也是需要时间的;资本市场中的投资者并非完全理性,而是具有认知和行为偏差的普通人,存在过度自信和过度交易的情况;信息不对称还可能引起市场操纵行为,从而导致价格泡沫的形成。     

信息不对称条件下产品转让价格的确定策略

本文讨论了两种情况下产品转让价格的确定问题：(Ⅰ)签约前生产商不了解销售商的销售能力。可能出现“逆向选择”问题。(Ⅱ)签约后生产商不了解销售商的销售努力,可能出现“道德风险”问题。针对这两种情况,运用信息经济学中的委托代理理论讨论了最优转让价格的确定思路。     

Efficient Environmental Taxation Under Worker-Firm Bargaining

We study an economy with free firm entry and unemployment due to firm-worker bargaining over each firm's surplus, and where firms cause pollution that can be reduced by initial investments. An uncompensated increase in the pollution tax reduces pollution but increases unemployment, implying a tradeoff between the two. When tax revenues are used to subsidize either firms' hiring or investments, employment may also increase, creating a double dividend from the pollution tax. A pollution tax increase used to subsidize current employment is always less effective than a hiring subsidy, and is totally ineffective when subsidies equal pollution tax revenues for each individual firm. We show that the (hypothetical) pollution tax implementing the first-best solution exceeds the Pigouvian tax. The second-best tax exceeds this first-best tax when we have a double dividend, and is below it when we do not.     

基于资产风险信息不对称的可转债融资信号模型

主要研究了可转债与资产风险信息不对称的信号模型,通过引入信息透明度,成本等因素进一步拓展了Brennan和Kraus(1987)提出的无成本可转债融资信号模型,说明使用可转债融资有助于克服资产风险的信息不对称问题,并能提高融资效率,减少债务融资成本。     

信息约束下的金融监管与银行声誉

如何在信息不对称的约束条件下降低金融风险、提高监管绩效,是金融监管中的一项重要课题.本文分析了信息结构对于监管的重要性,认为声誉机制的建立可以降低银行与监管部门之间信息不对称的程度和风险发生的概率,并运用KMFW模型,分析了不对称信息下银行声誉机制减少违规动机的过程,指出应该注重激励相容的制度安排,将外部监管与自律有机结合起来,促使银行自发选择接受监管且减少进行高风险投资的动机,这是信息不对称条件下提高监管效率的重要策略.结合我国实情,本文提出可通过银行风险评级、建立可置信的惩罚机制、完善银行内部治理机构、改进监管人员激励约束机制、构建和完善金融监管信息系统等措施,建立健全银行声誉机制,以进一步改善监管绩效.     

家庭结构信息非对称下的经济适用房准入机制模型设计

经济适用房建设不仅是解决中低收入家庭住房的有效途径之一,也是关注民生、构建和谐社会所必须.但是,现行经济适用住房申购分配中出现的虚假申请、隐瞒事实等现象,严重影响着经济适用房政策的公平实施,造成社会资源的浪费.其原因之一是在政策制定的过程中,没有系统考虑家庭结构信息的非对称性、个人理性等因素.运用机制设计理论,构建基于信息非对称和个人理性的经济适用房准入机制模型.通过算例分析,验证了该模型能够使申请家庭选择真实类型上报时,不会带来利益上的损失;而采取策略性类型上报,则可能损失利益,从而引导申请家庭上报真实的家庭结构类型,从制度上消除不合理申报.     

Repeated Bargaining with Persistent Private Information

The paper analyses repeated contract negotiations involving the same buyer and seller where the contracts are linked because the buyer has persistent (but not full y permanent) private information. The size of the surplus being divided is specified as a two-state Markov chain with transitions that are synchronized with contract negotiation dates. Equilibrium involves information cycles triggered by the success or failure of aggressive demands made by the seller. Because there is persistence in the Markov chain generating the surplus, a successful demand induces the seller to make another aggressive demand in the next negotiation, since the buyer's acceptance reveals that the current surplus is large. Rejection of an aggressive demand, on the other hand, leads the seller to be pessimistic about the size of the surplus in the next contract, so the seller makes a soft offer that is sure to be accepted. Then, after several such offers have been accepted, the seller is optimistic enough to again make an aggressive demand, creating an information cycle. An interesting feature of this cycle is that the soft price is not constant, but declines as the cycle continues, so as to offset the buyer's option value of re-starting the cycle when the current state is bad. An explicit mapping is given for the relationship between the basic parameters and the equilibrium prices and quantities; in particular, there is a closed-form solution for the threshold belief that makes the seller indifferent between hard and soft offers.     

不对称雇主学习、外部选择与雇员谈判力

本文在非合作博弈（策略式）单边不对称信息讨价还价框架下,按照外部约束（而不是威胁点）的思路来模型化外部雇主的竞争,以分析不对称雇主学习的程度对处于信息劣势的通用性雇员谈判力的决定作用。本文提出的框架弥补了已有文献的一些不足,同时为不对称雇主学习这一劳动经济学概念提供了一个讨价还价理论基础。     

信息不对称条件下离任审计制度的创新

现行离任审计制度有很多缺陷厂长(经理)在离任时的财务收支审计和经济效益审计合理、合法、合规,但企业实际上已成"空壳",没有发展后劲,资产匹配不合理,人力资源结构失调,市场竞争力低.其原因是因为厂长(经理)掌握了任期内的许多"私人信息",这些信息是审计机构利用目前的审计方法不能完全挖掘出来的.本文从委托代理理论出发,分析现代企业的委托受托关系实质,阐述运用离任审计的必要性,并从激励和监督两个角度对现行离任审计制度进行了完善.     

Asymmetric Information and Annuities

The standard Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976) and Wilson (1977) analysis of adverse selection economies is extended to a particular model of annuity market which features both elements of moral hazard and adverse selection. Individuals are heterogeneous with respect to time preferences and they make investments in health care that affect their survival probabilities. The main case considered is that where both preferences and investments (and hence the endogenous survival probabilities) are unobserved. Thus, the model captures a further source of inefficiency that is particular to annuity market: an endogenous correlation between the desire for annuities and the survival probabilities. The basic insights of Wilson (1977) —as worked out by Eckstein, Eichenbaum and Peled (1985) —are worth also in this new setting. When the equilibrium is separating, the government intervention may yield Pareto improvements. If the equilibrium is pooling, the government intervention may improve the well‐being of individuals affected by the inefficiencies and the negative externalities caused by the asymmetric information.     

The Role of Bargaining Initiative Under no Commitment to Audit

This paper addresses the issue of the optimal contract design under costly state verification and no commitment to auditing when the contract offer comes from the uninformed party. Contrary to similar frameworks and to cases where the informed party retains the bargaining power, we find that the optimal contract is characterised neither by truth telling nor by mixed strategy equilibria. Depending on endogenous revenues and observation cost, a pooling equilibrium with either deterministic or random auditing occurs.     

Litigation with Symmetric Bargaining and Two-Sided Incomplete Information

We construct game-theoretic foundations for bargaining in theshadow of a trial. Plaintiff and defendant both have noisy signalsof a common-value trial judgment and make simultaneous offersto settle. If the offers cross, they settle on the average offer;otherwise, both litigants incur an additional cost and the judgmentis imposed at trial. We obtain an essentially unique Nash equilibriumand characterize its conditional trial probabilities and judgments.Some of the results are intuitive. For example, an increasein trial cost (or a decrease in the range of possible outcomes)reduces the probability of a trial. We obtain a precise nonlinearexpression for the relationship. Other results reverse findingsfrom previous literature. For example, trials are possible evenwhen the defendant's signal indicates a higher potential judgmentthan the plaintiff's signal, and when trial costs are low, middlingcases (rather than extreme cases) are more likely to settle.