Expertise, Subversion, and Bureaucratic Discretion

This article examines a legislature's delegation of policy-makingauthority to an imperfectly controlled, expert bureaucrat. Thelegislature can reduce the bureaucrat's expertise advantagethrough costly investigations of its own before delegating.Further, the bureaucrat is granted discretionary bounds by thelegislature, but can subvert legislative dictates by steppingbeyond them at some cost. I analyze the interaction of preferencedivergence, investigation cost to the legislature, and subversioncost to the bureaucrat on the decision to delegate. The modelshows that, because of the equilibrium effect of subversionon discretion, bureaucrats will want subversion of legislativedictates to be difficult, while legislators want it to be relativelyeasy. It also highlights an indirect effect between preferencedivergence and discretion: preference divergence leads the legislatureto become more expert on policy matters, which leads it to delegateless.     

股权激励与代理成本

传统以管理费用率作为代理成本的替代不能恰当地反映管理者在职消费和职务侵占的真实水平,本文用经过Jones模型纠正的费用率作为代理成本的替代,考察了所有权性质、总经理持股与否及持股比例对代理成本的影响。本文提供了私有制下总经理适当持股有利于降低代理成本的可靠证据,为中国上市公司即将展开的股权激励计划提供证据的支持。     

Endogenous Verifiability and Optimality in Agency

This paper investigates the optimal contract design in a principal-agent model where verification of an agent's action is endogenously determined through strategic interactions between contracting parties. We derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the first best outcome to be implemented as an equilibrium. The equilibrium has the following features: (i) The action level that the agent chooses is not verified even if it is possible. (ii) Nevertheless, the first best can be attained by making a contract contingent on the unverified action. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D20, K40.     

Agency Costs in Dynamic Economic Models

We consider an overlapping generations economy where capital is produced from bank loans under stochastic constant returns to scale, and subject to idiosyncratic shocks whose realisations are costly to verify. Our formulation differs from earlier work in permitting investment projects to be infinitely divisible and private agency costs to be convex. If there are external economies to financial intermediation, then deviations from steady-state output are negatively correlated with the spread between loan and deposit rates. Moreover, the capital stock correspondence is set-valued, a result consistent with poverty traps, growth cycles, and hump-shaped impulse response functions.     

Monetary Policy, Agency Costs and Output Dynamics

This paper examines the role of financial market imperfections for output reactions to nominal interest rate shocks. Empirical evidence shows a hump-shaped impulse response function of output and suggests that credit supply co-moves with output. A monetary business cycle model with staggered price setting is presented where the firms' outlays for capital and labor must be covered by the sum of net worth of entrepreneurs and loans in the form of debt contracts. These properties are shown to generate a hump-shaped impulse response of output, which takes on the smooth and persistent appearance of the empirical output response when nominal wages are set in a staggered way, too.     

媒体监督、公司治理与代理成本

文章以2001-2009年沪深两市上市公司为样本,考察了媒体监督、公司治理与代理成本之间的关系。研究发现,媒体监督能够降低企业的代理成本、提高代理效率;在降低代理成本和提高代理效率的具体问题上,媒体监督与公司内部治理机制表现出不同的作用和关系。这意味着要有效降低代理成本、提高代理效率,应当综合考虑中国当前的市场环境,结合企业具体存在的问题,配合使用不同的治理机制。     

代理成本、管理层持股与审计质量

所有权和经营权相分离的现代企业制度导致了股东和管理层之间严重的代理冲突。上市公司降低代理冲突的主要途径是激励与监督,其中,管理层持股和审计分别是内部激励和外部监督的重要方式。会计师事务所的规模和审计费用在一定程度上反映了审计质量。文章基于代理成本的角度,采用2005-2009年中国A股非金融类上市公司非平衡面板数据,运用Logistic二元逻辑回归模型和稳健最小二乘法研究了代理成本、管理层持股与审计质量之间的关系。研究发现:代理成本高的公司会寻求高质量的外部审计,倾向于聘请大规模的会计师事务所;管理层持股能起到完善公司内部治理机制的作用,减少代理冲突,从而降低公司对外部审计质量的需求。     

外部监督、股权激励与股权代理成本

基于股权代理成本角度,采用2010年中国沪深两市发行A股的非金融类上市公司截面数据,并运用最小二乘法和logistic二元逻辑回归模型,研究了外部监督、股权激励与股权代理成本之间的关系。研究发现,股权代理成本高的公司更加倾向于寻求有效的外部监督,聘请高质量的会计师事务所;股权激励并不能起到完善公司内部治理机制的作用,反而会提高股权代理成本;股权激励会提高公司对外部审计质量的要求。     

公司治理、盈余质量与经理人代理成本

高质量的会计信息有助于降低委托人与代理人之间的信息不对称,从而对公司治理产生重要影响。本文以工具变量和面板数据模型等方法考察了盈余质量对股东—经理人代理关系的影响。以应计质量为盈余质量的度量,研究发现,盈余质量高的上市公司经理人代理成本较低,盈余质量改善的上市公司经理人代理成本发生了显著下降。本文的研究结论为会计信息的公司治理效应提供了新的证据。     

企业债券期限结构研究——基于交易成本和代理成本视角

发行长期债券可以降低交易成本．但债券期限越长，代理成本就越高。企业在发行新债券时必须对交易成本和代理成本进行权衡．寻求最优债券期限结构。模型证明，发行企业债券时运用提前赎回条款、卖回条款、偿偾基金条款和转换权等债券契约条款可以同时达到降低发债总成本和延长企业债券融资期限的目的。     

Decision Making Costs and Problem Solving Performance

We report the results from an experimental study of how problem solving behavior is affected by financial rewards. We formulate three alternative hypotheses: costly rationality, extrinsic/intrinsic trade-off, and distraction effects. Subjects play a computerized version of the Tower-of-Hanoi game and report their beliefs about the optimal solution through a quadratic scoring rule. Subjects participate in one of two treatments: a high penalty and a low penalty. We find that eliciting beliefs, in addition to observing playing behavior, reveals useful information about subjects' cognitive behavior. We reject our hypothesis that the increase in the extrinsic penalty affects the intrinsic valuation in such a way as to decrease the amount of effort applied.     

公司治理中的代理成本问题研究综述

代理成本是公司治理要解决的基本问题,公司的内部治理结构和外部环境均会对代理成本产生影响。代理成本可以解释不同国家的融资方式和宏观经济表现,应从内、外部两方面来控制代理成本。中国国有企业问题的根本症结在于多重委托代理关系,应简化这种关系,明确权利与责任。进一步研究应考察代理成本在公司层面和宏观层面的外溢效应。     

An Agency Perspective on the Costs and Benefits of Privatization

This paper proposes a unified theoretical framework to discuss the costs and benefits of privatization using the recent advances of Incentive Theory. I begin by presenting a simple model in which the State (the principal) delegates a task (e.g., the production of a public good) to the private sector (the agent). I give and discuss conditions for the “Irrelevance Theorem” due to Sappington and Stiglitz [Sappington, D., & Stiglitz, J. (1987) Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 6, 567–582] to hold under complete contracting. I then show how various contract incompletenesses can make either public or private ownership optimal. Finally, I provide critical assessments of these results. I thank Patrick Rey and Wilfried Zantman for useful comments on an earlier draft. The excellent comments of two referees have also improved substantially the presentation and organization of the paper. I am deeply indebted to Denis Gromb for his extremely detailed comments.     

Earnouts: The Effects of Adverse Selection and Agency Costs on Acquisition Techniques

We examine the effects of adverse selection and agency costson the structure of the consideration offered in an acquisition.Specifically we investigate factors affecting the benefits arisingfrom use of earnouts. We find that when targets have greaterprivate information, consideration is more likely to be basedon the future performance of the target. We also find an earnoutis more likely to be used in an acquisition if the target isa smaller, private company in a different industry than theacquirer. In addition, earnouts are more likely to be used whenfewer acquisitions take place within an industry and when targetsare service companies or companies with more unrecorded assets.Finally, we compare the use of earnouts with the use of stockand find that financing considerations are a more importantfactor in the use of stock.     

Endogenous Sunk Costs, Flexible Manufacturing and the Productivity Effects of International Trade

The paper addresses the productivity effects of international trade in the presence of flexible manufacturing and endogenous sunk costs (cost-reducing R&D). It shows that international trade raises R&D expenditures, but this will not necessarily boost productivity because of possibly counteracting market structure effects. The analysis is conducted in general equilibrium so that implications for real wages and welfare can also be addressed. Both can fall when trade leads to excessive R&D investment.     

Efficiency Defense in EU and US Horizontal Merger Control if Costs are Endogenous

If fixed costs are endogenous, following from profit maximization, horizontal mergers are always profitable. They cause the price to rise and consumer surplus to decrease. A case of horizontal merger in which, according to the requirement of US and EU Merger Guidelines for an efficiency defense to be acceptable, the price declines or remains constant does not exist and therefore cannot be expected by profit maximizing partners to arise following a merger. Merger control should be guided by focusing on total welfare. Permitting cooperation in R&D, although profitable, is likely to be detrimental to welfare.     

Incentives, Risk, and Agency Costs in the Choice of Contractual Arrangements in Agriculture

The author develops a theory of the choice of contractual arrangements in agriculture by analyzing the incentives, risk-premia, and agency (supervision and shirking) costs under different contracts using the principal–agent framework. The theory is able to explain many tenancy-related issues, such as why sharecropping can be the optimal contract even in the presence of considerable shirking by the tiller, the predominance of sharecropping and of the 50*T*:*T*50 output share, the coexistence of sharecropping with other contracts, and the tenancy ladder.     

Incentives and Transactions Costs Within the Firm: Estimating an Agency Model Using Payroll Records

We estimate an agency model using the payroll records of a copper mine that paid a production bonus to teams of workers. We estimate the cost of incomplete information due to insurance and incentives considerations and the inefficiency caused by the simple form of the incentive contract itself. At the estimated parameters the cost of worker risk aversion (insurance) is of similar magnitude to moral hazard (incentives). Overall, incomplete information accounted for one-half of the bonus system's inefficiency relative to potential full information profits. The other half is attributed to the bonus system's inefficient generation of incentives and insurance relative to the optimal incentive contract.