Double moral hazard and renegotiation

We examine renegotiation in a double moral hazard model with an ex ante budget balancing constraint when both the principal and the agent are allowed to make a renegotiation offer even though the principal proposes an initial contract. Under a belief restriction, any perfect-Bayesian equilibrium leads to an allocation that is superior to the second-best allocation of the standard double moral hazard model without renegotiation. The result of this paper gives some reasons for the existence of intermediary organizations such as holding companies, law houses, consulting firms, investment banks or venture capital. The result can also provide the rationalization for a fund set up by a group of firms of the industry in which their product is legally required to be recyclable.     

Optimality and renegotiation in dynamic contracting

We characterize the optimal renegotiation-proof contract in a dynamic principal–agent model in which the type of the agent may change stochastically over time. We show that, under general conditions, the optimal contract with commitment is renegotiation proof even when type realizations are serially correlated. When the renegotiation-proofness constraint is binding, it is always optimal to partially screen the types by offering a menu of choices to the agent; and the distortion induced by the renegotiation-proofness constraint is non-decreasing in the persistence of types.     

On the welfare effects of allowing unlimited renegotiation in agency relationships

We study renegotiation in an agency setting where the number of offers and accept/reject decisions parties can make is potentially unlimited. Thus any contract, either on or off the equilibrium path, may be subject to possible renegotiation. We first show that the principal will not be able to gain complete access to the agent’s private information with unlimited renegotiation, unlike when the potential number of renegotiations is finite. Rather the agent either employ a randomized reporting strategy or do not to report at all. We then identify conditions under which expected allocations are most efficient with the contract that induces no agent communication. More significantly, by doing so we also identify conditions under which the parties are made strictly worse off by committing to end renegotiation after a fixed number of rounds. We thank workshop participants at University of California, Irvine, University of Chicago, Duke University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, University of Houston, London School of Economics, University of Minnesota, Ohio State University, the Carnegie Mellon Accounting Research Conference, the editor, and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments and suggestions.     

Bargaining and the observability of contractual commitments via third parties

This paper analyzes a two-stage model of bilateral bargaining where one of the agents has the option to delegate. A first approach is to assume that the contract between the agent and his representative is perfectly observable and can be renegotiated. Commitment effects arise although renegotiation is possible. Then, perfect observability of the contract is weakened to observe it with certain probability. Commitment effects as pure-strategy equilibria exist if this probability is sufficiently close to 1, in contrast to Bagwell's [1995] findings that imperfect observability undermines commitment. Considering the realistic case of the actual agreement between two parties being private information, the commitment value as equilibrium outcome disappears since having closed a renegotiation-proof contract offers costless self-insurance against strategic misunderstandings. The author is grateful for helpful comments from Vasco Santos, participants at the International Atlantic Economic Conference, October 7–10, 1999, Montreal, Canada, an anonymous referee, and David M. Aadland.     

Collusion and Renegotiation in a Principal–Supervisor–Agent Relationship

We describe a principal–supervisor–agent relationship in which agent and supervisor may collude. To prevent collusion, the principal may contract on a noisy signal which is correlated with the occurrence of collusion. When the signal is informative enough, the principal uses it and no collusion occurs in equilibrium. These contracts, however, are ex post inefficient and are only optimal if the principal can commit not to renegotiate. With renegotiation it is never optimal for the principal to prevent collusion and, at the same time, condition contracts on the signal. In fact, when the signal is informative enough collusion occurs in equilibrium.     

Contracts and externalities: How things fall apart

A single principal interacts with several agents, offering them contracts. The crucial assumption of this paper is that the outside-option payoffs of the agents depend positively on how many uncontracted or “free” agents there are. We study how such a principal, unwelcome though he may be, approaches the problem of contract provision to agents when coordination failure among the latter group is explicitly ruled out. Two variants are considered. When the principal cannot re-approach agents, there is a unique equilibrium, in which contract provision is split up into two phases. In phase 1, simultaneous offers at good (though varying) terms are made to a number of agents. In phase 2, offers must be made sequentially, and their values are “discontinuously” lower: they are close to the very lowest of all the outside options. When the principal can repeatedly approach the same agent, there is a multiplicity of equilibria. In some of these, the agents have the power to force delay. They can hold off the principal's overtures temporarily, but they must succumb in finite time. In both models, despite being able to coordinate their actions, agents cannot resist an “invasion” by the principal and hold to their best payoff. It is in this sense that “things [eventually] fall apart”.     

Unforeseen Contingencies and Incomplete Contracts

We scrutinize the conceptual framework commonly used in the incomplete contract literature. This literature usually assumes that contractual incompleteness is due to the transaction costs of describing—or of even foreseeing—the possible states of nature in advance. We argue, however, that such transaction costs need not interfere with optimal contracting ( i.e. transaction costs need not be relevant ), provided that agents can probabilistically forecast their possible future payoffs (even if other aspects of the state of the nature cannot be forecast). In other words, all that is required for optimality is that agents be able to perform dynamic programming, an assumption always invoked by the incomplete contract literature. The foregoing optimality result holds very generally provided that parties can commit themselves not to renegotiate. Moreover, we point out that renegotiation may be hard to reconcile with a framework that otherwise presumes perfect rationality. However, even if renegotiation is allowed, the result still remains valid provided that parties are risk averse.     

Delegation versus centralization: The role of externalities

We study a simple contracting game with a principal and two agents. Contracts exert externalities on non-contractors. The principal can either contract both agents in a centralized manner, or delegate one agent to contract the other. We show that the choice of the principal depends on the sign of the externality. If this is positive, the principal prefers to delegate as long as the agency costs are not too high; if the externality is negative, the principal prefers to centralize for all sizes of agency costs.     

The Law and Economics of Costly Contracting

In most of the contract theory literature, contracting costsare assumed either to be high enough to preclude certain formsof contracting or low enough to permit any contract to be written.Similarly researchers usually treat renegotiation as eithercostless or prohibitively costly. This article addresses themiddle ground between these extremes, in which the costs ofcontracting and renegotiation can take intermediate values andthe contracting parties can themselves influence these costs.The context for our analysis is the canonical problem of inducingefficient relation-specific investment and efficient ex posttrade. Among our principle results are: (i) The efficiency andcomplexity of the initial contract are decreasing in the costto create a contract. Hence the best mechanism design contractscan be too costly to write. (ii) When parties use the simplercontract forms, they require renegotiation to capture ex postsurplus and to create efficient investment incentives. In somecases, parties want low renegotiation costs. More interestingis that, in other cases, parties have a strict preference formoderate renegotiation costs. (iii) The effect of contract lawon contract form is significant but has been overlooked. Inparticular, the law's interpretive rules raise the cost of enforcingcomplex contracts, and thus induce parties to use simple contracts.Worse, the law also lowers renegotiation costs, which furtherundermines complex contracts and is also inappropriate for someof the simpler contracts.     

‘An Incomplete Contract Approach to Eurozone Fiscal Governance’ – Commitment vs. Flexibility

In this paper, we take an incomplete contract approach to Eurozone Fiscal Governance between the European Commission (EC) and any heavily debt member state, Greece in particular. Incomplete contract approach makes possible to put a long process of Eurozone Fiscal Governance into an extensive form game in which a renegotiation procedure is incorporated. We theoretically reveal the conflict of interests between the EC (Germany) and Greece over the Greek debt repayment plan proposed in 2015. We show that the Greek’s position is consistent with incomplete contract theory, but that the EC (Germany) does not allow the renegotiation for restructuring for growth-oriented debt repayment program proposed by the Greek government because the EC (Germany) judges that the commitment effect (on fiscal austerity) is greater than the flexibility one (pro-growth effect). This will undoubtedly provide a novel and interesting approach to Eurozone Fiscal Governance.     

Testing for the principal’s monopsony power in agency contracts

We develop a test for the presence of the monopsony power of the livestock integrator (principal) on the market for contract growers (agents) and estimate the model with the data on swine industry contract settlements. A natural test for the monopsony power of the principal would compare the estimated values of the marginal revenue products with the actual payments that agents receive for their services. The problem with implementing this approach comes from the fact that agents’ abilities and actions are unobservable. Our approach is based on estimating the slope of the inverse supply function for grower input using generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators. The model specifies the relationships between the observable consequences and unobservable grower characteristics imposing the first order conditions for principal’s profit maximization. The results show that the null hypothesis of no market power cannot be rejected.

Individual accountability in teams

We consider a model of team production in which the principal observes only the team output, but agents can monitor one another (at a cost) and provide reports to the principal. We consider the problem faced by a principal who is prevented from penalizing an agent without evidence showing that the agent failed to complete his assigned actions. We show the first-best (high effort but no monitoring) can be achieved, but only if the principal assigns second-best actions. The principal requires monitoring, but agents do not monitor, and as long as output is high, the principal does not penalize agents who fail to monitor. If the principal has the responsibility for monitoring, the first-best outcome cannot be achieved, thus we identify an incentive for delegated monitoring even when agents have no informational advantage.     

Intergenerational Transfer Schemes as Incomplete Social Contracts

Intergenerational transfers are often viewed as emerging from social contracts that specify the terms of trade for some pattern of exchange among generations. Here it is argued that such a view should incorporate contractual incompleteness and the impossibility to ex ante rule out the renegotiation of the social contract. In the present setting, such issues preclude that social contracts implement first-best decisions. Yet, a situation with an incomplete and renegotiable social contract is superior to various other scenarios, including the no-contract solution.     

Moral Hazard and Other-Regarding Preferences

The paper aims at obtaining new theoretical insights by combining the standard moral hazard models of principal–agent relationships with theories of other-regarding preferences, in particular inequity aversion theory. The principal is in general worse off, as the agent cares more about the wellbeing of the principal. When there are multiple symmetric agents who care about each other's wellbeing, the principal can optimally exploit their other-regarding nature by designing an appropriate interdependent contract such as a "fair" team contract or a relative performance contract. The approach taken in this paper can shed light on issues on endogenous preferences within organizations.     

Renegotiation in agency contracts, menus vs. simple contracts

The literature on contracts has shown that renegotiation in agency relationships generates efficiency losses when the principal leads the renegotiation. We show that contractual incompleteness may reduce such efficiency loss. This provides an explanation to the widespread use of simple contracts. We further point at the limited liability of the agent as a source of inefficiency when he leads the renegotiation; this latter result tempers the irrelevancy of contractual incompleteness demonstrated earlier in the literature. I thank E. Del Rey and the referees for their helpful comments and suggestions. Financial support from the EU RTN grant HPRN-CT-2000-00064 is gratefully acknowledged.     

On the Trade-off Between Work-related Training and Labor Mobility: The Role of Firing and Exit Costs

Within an incomplete-contract framework, we examine the consequences of contract renegotiation for contract design/enforcement and training market efficiency. Specifically, we show how the imposition of either firing costs or exit costs can bind together employers and employees in longer-lasting employment relationships that allow both agents to amortize their training investments. Nevertheless, the model implies that, although firing and exit costs provide institutional solutions to the training under-investment problem, this is achieved at the expense of allocative efficiency (efficient separations). Empirical evidence supports the existence of such a trade-off.revised version received July 23, 2003     

Present-biased preferences,self-awareness and shirking

We model a mechanism design problem in which the principal owns a project that requires work effort by an agent, but agents may have time-inconsistent, present-biased preferences and lack complete self-awareness of these preferences. The self-control problem and naïveté of an agent may lead him to agree to a contract but later shirk or slack-off, even though doing so is observable. When the principal cannot severely punish shirking and agents are completely naïve, the second-best solution entails allowing a present-biased agent to slack-off in order to avoid a greater loss due to shirking. With greater self-awareness among present-biased agents, the principal may do better by screening some from accepting the contract. Furthermore, when shirking can be severely punished, this does not lead to contracts that eliminate effects of the self control problem. Instead the principal may exploit present-biased agents by offering a contract that allows them to slack-off (which agents fail to foresee they will choose to do) but at the expense of foregoing much compensation.     

Hidden information,bargaining power,and efficiency: an experiment

We devise an experiment to explore the effect of different degrees of bargaining power on the design and the selection of contracts in a hidden-information context. In our benchmark case, each principal is matched with one agent of unknown type. In our second treatment, a principal can select one of three agents, while in a third treatment an agent may choose between the contract menus offered by two principals. We first show theoretically how different ratios of principals and agents affect outcomes and efficiency. Informational asymmetries generate inefficiency. In an environment where principals compete against each other to hire agents, these inefficiencies may disappear, but they are insensitive to the number of principals. In contrast, when agents compete to be hired, efficiency improves dramatically, and it increases in the relative number of agents because competition reduces the agents’ informational monopoly power. However, this environment also generates a high inequality level and is characterized by multiple equilibria. In general, there is a fairly high degree of correspondence between the theoretical predictions and the contract menus actually chosen in each treatment. There is, however, a tendency to choose more ‘generous’ (and more efficient) contract menus over time. We find that competition leads to a substantially higher probability of trade, and that, overall, competition between agents generates the most efficient outcomes.     

Theories of behavior in principal-agent relationships with hidden action

In a laboratory experiment, we investigate behavior in a principal-agent situation with moral hazard. We evaluate the predictive success of two theories. One is the standard agency theory, which assumes that the agent will accept any contract offer that satisfies his participation constraint, typically requiring zero expected utility. The other is the “fair-offer” theory suggested by Keser and Willinger [2000. Principals’ principles when agents’ actions are hidden. International Journal of Industrial Organization 18 (1), 163-185], which requires that the principal provide full insurance against losses to the agent and leave him a share of at most 50% of the generated surplus. The treatment variable of our experiment is the cost of effort. As effort costs increase, expected net surplus of a contract decreases. We observe that fair-offer theory generally predicts observed contract offers better than standard agency theory. However, the predictive success of the fair-offer theory decreases, while the one of standard agency theory increases with decreasing expected net surplus.     

Complexity and Renegotiation: A Foundation for Incomplete Contracts

The paper considers a hold-up model where only one of n future trading opportunities will prove to be efficient, and where ex post renegotiation of the ex ante contract cannot be prevented. As the environment becomes more complex ( n →∞), the outcome under any message-contingent long-term contract converges to that of the "incomplete contracting" model where trade is contractible ex post , but not ex ante . When trades are costly to describe, both ex ante and ex post , the incomplete contracting result is extended to a broader class of environments.