Corporate insurance with optimal financial contracting

Summary. This paper attemps to rationalize the use of insurance covenants in financial contracts, and shows how external financing generates a demand for insurance by risk-neutral entrepreneurs. In our model, the entrepreneur needs external financing for a risky project that can be affected by an accident during its realization. Accident losses and final returns are private information to the firm, but they can be evaluated by two costly auditing technologies. We derive the optimal financial contract: it is a bundle of a standard debt contract and an insurance contract with franchise, trading off bankruptcy costs vs auditing costs. We then analyze how this optimal contract can be achieved by decentralized trading on competitive markets when insurance and credit activities are exogenously separated. With additive risks, the insurance contract involves full coverage above a straight deductible. We interpret this result by showing how our results imply induced risk aversion for risk-neutral firms. Received: December 14, 1998; revised version: August 11, 1999     

Dynamic Incentive Contracts under No-Commitment to Periodic Auditing and a Non-retrospective Penalty System

This paper generalizes Khalil’s (1997) static model to a multiperiod one. The associated optimal dynamic contracts are derived and analyzed. At every-period’s equilibrium, the principal conducts no sure auditing. While duplication of the Baron-Myerson-type (1982) contract cannot be optimal, duplication of the Khalil-type (1997) contract can be optimal when the cheating penalty is large or discount factors are small. This implies that static contracts with no-commitment to auditing can describe players’ long-run behavior only under specific conditions. Moreover, our separating and pooling equilibria are compared with Baron and Besanko’s (1984a) and Laffont and Tirole’s (1987) equilibria, respectively.     

The effects of imperfect auditing on managerial compensation

We study the optimal shareholder–manager contract having the property to induce the manager to exert high effort and truthfully reveal firm performance. This contract design problem is solved under the assumption of imperfect auditing, either because of mistakes or because of collusion between managers and auditors. The imperfection of the audit technology is costless up to a threshold, beyond which it causes a distortion in the incentive compatible contract or even prevents its existence. This result may help explain the observed decline in the use of stock options, tracing it back to an unfocused activity or poor performance of auditors.     

浅议国家审计对权力的监督和制约

国家设立审计机关,其目的就是要从制度上建立权力制衡机制.国家审计加强对权力的监督和制约,是新时期党和政府对国家审计提出的新要求.本文分析了提高国家审计对权力的监督和制约的认识,以及国家审计如何对权力进行监督和制约的问题.     

Measurement distortion and missing contingencies in optimal contracts

Summary Theory suggests that optimal contracts should include many contingencies to achieve optimal risk sharing. However, in practice, few contracts are as complex as theory suggests. This paper develops a model which is consistent with this observation. The lack of risk sharing results from the interplay of two factors. First, contingencies must be based on information produced by measurement systems, which may be manipulable. Second, when two parties to a contract meet, they often have incomplete information. The type of contract offered may reveal information about the party who proposes it. Different types of agents have different preferences over contingent contracts, because they have different abilities to manipulate the measurement system. These differences in preferences allow the parties to signal their types through the contracts they offer. Noncontingent contracts may be chosen in equilibrium because they are the only contracts which do not give any type an incentive to distort the measurement system and, hence, do not reveal information about the party proposing the contract.We have benefited from conversations with Oliver Hart, Rick Lambert, Michael Riordan and Jean Tirole and the comments of Michel Habib, Nick Yannelis and two anonymous referees. Financial support from the National Science Foundation under grants SES-8920048 and SES-8720589 is gratefully acknowledged.     

THIRD PARTIES, INFORMATION DISCLOSURE AND MONITORING INCENTIVES

Within an incomplete contract setting, the paper analyses the role of third parties in ameliorating incentive problems arising in the context of financial contracts with costly verification and lender's bargaining power. Contrary to the findings of the bilateral lender–borrower relationship, characterised by no information revelation and possibly a breakdown of the market, it is shown that, in the presence of third parties, an optimal contract exists featuring partial information revelation and random monitoring. The importance of third parties is therefore not limited to improving efficiency, as it is when the contract offer comes from the informed party, but to ensure project realisation, and thus to ensure that the surplus that can arise from the project does not get lost.     

Dynamic Incentive Contracts in Multiple Penalty Systems with No-commitment to Tenure-track Auditing

This paper generalizes Khalil's (1997) static model to a multiperiod one in the tenure-track auditing. Three penalty systems considered are full-transfer-dependent, partial-transfer-dependent, and transfer-independent ones. It is found that the equilibrium under the tenure-track auditing is also an equilibrium under the periodic auditing. The conditions under which the principal prefers the periodic auditing, or is indifferent between the two auditing schemes are derived. Incentive contracts may vary in different penalty systems. For instance, the equilibrium with principal’s sure ex post auditing exists only under the partial-transfer-dependent and transfer-independent penalty systems. And the equilibrium with the first-best contract as the first-period optimum appears merely under the transfer-independent penalty system.     

Promises, trust, and contracts

A transaction involving a buyer and a competitive seller isstudied under the hypothesis that individuals may have a certaintendency to keep promises. The parties can choose a completecontract where costly arrangements are made so that it is verifiablewhether the seller has delivered a certain quality. Alternatively,they can choose an incomplete contract where the quality agreedupon by the two parties is unverifiable, and one party is giventhe residual right to decide whether the quality is indeed delivered.Although complete contracts are always available, it may beoptimal to use incomplete contracts, and social surplus canincrease in contract costs. Social surplus is higher when thebuyer has the residual right if under this arrangement incompletecontracts are optimal; and social surplus is higher when theseller has the residual right if only under this arrangementincomplete contracts are optimal.     

再议基于利益冲突下审计独立性

独立性对于审计尤其是注册会计师审计而言是其核心基础。注册会计师的审计业务作为一种经营行为,难免要受到利益指针的指引,而其工作的立足点即是超然的不受影响的第三方独立。在经营利益和品质独立的博弈中,在所有的审计人一步步前行、发展的同时仍然面临独立性的挑战。进入本世纪后,财务造假案频发,且人们发现在企业经营失败的后面总伴随着审计失败,究其本质原因依然是注册会计师在审计各方的利益冲突中迷失了自我,丧失了基本的独立性。文章就注册会计师如何在利益冲突中保持独立性等相关问题进行一些必要的探讨。     

对公司股东与利益相关者的比较研究--一个契约理论的扩展分析

主流的企业契约或契约连接点理论对解释现代公司提供了一个具有说服力的规范性理由,尤其在与股东的关系方面.但契约理论本身并没有具体要求其研究的主体必须是股东还是利益相关者.更有甚者,该理论允许任何处于契约连接点的各方通过相互同意所达成的经济组织方式.本文通过对该理论的一个简单扩展,对股东和利益相关者作了进一步的比较,其结论可以缓解我们对这二者之间对立性的认识,并对现实的公司具体的激励机制设计有所帮助.     

论物权登记效力与合同效力的区分

不区分物权登记效力与合同效力,合同的效力就有可能由一方当事人决定,这显然有悖于民法理论。因此,坚持区分合同效力与登记效力,是遵循民法基本理论、保护合同当事人合法权益的现实需要。物权登记的效力由《物权法》规范,合同的效力由《合同法》决定;登记效力指向物权,合同效力指向债权;合同效力取决于合意,物权效力取决于登记。科学认识和运用不动产物权的登记效力,正确行使物权,有利于更好地实现《物权法》确定的“定分止争、物尽其用”的目标。     

GRANTING AN EXIT OPTION TO CONDUCT AN AUDIT

We study a principal–agent relationship with auditing in which information from an audit is ‘soft’– by conducting an audit, the principal observes the agent's private information, but cannot obtain verifiable evidence on the information. Moreover, the principal's auditing effort is unverifiable in our model. Therefore, besides the agent's misreporting incentive, there is the principal's incentive to accuse the truthful agent even without auditing. If the principal's auditing effort is verifiable, granting no exit option to the agent is optimal although the principal can still accuse a truthful agent after the audit. We show that when the principal's auditing effort is unverifiable, granting an exit option to the agent and auditing are complementary. Without granting an exit option to the agent, no auditing is optimal, and the principal grants an exit option to conduct a sincere audit, which in turn mitigates the agent's misreporting incentive. Our analysis also reveals that, when the cost of auditing is sufficiently large, the principal conducts more sincere audits with a smaller amount of penalty.     

论第三方物流中标的物风险负担

买卖合同标的物风险负担的一般规则,各国有交付主义与所有人主义两种不同的立法模式。在第三方物流中,因涉及出卖人、买受人和物流方共三方主体,其标的物的风险负担规则与一般买卖合同有所不同。在当前较为通行的第三方物流模式下,物流方多为卖方或买方的受托人,其接受或提取货物的行为是标的物风险转移的外在标志。在因物流方之过错致标的物毁损、灭失,物流方承运过程中出卖人出卖标的物以及物流方迟延履行等情况下,标的物的风险负担均有其特殊规则。     

Why costless auditing may reduce social welfare

We analyze a model where both a regulator and a firm may detect and stop bad projects. We show that full auditing by the regulator may be socially suboptimal even with zero auditing costs. The reason is that the firm's own auditing incentive may be crowded out when protected by limited liability. The optimal policy depends on the firm's wealth.     

从极端到综合:独占交易理论新进展

本文通过文献解读和分析阐述独占交易理论的新进展,重点讨论了独占交易对竞争的影响、与共同代理的权衡、独占交易的完全排他与部分排他等三个问题。近年来关于独占交易理论的研究显得比较"中立"很多,不再从一个极端走向另一个极端。独占交易可能是反竞争的,也可能是社会有效的,要根据具体情况分析和综合考虑。经济文献中的线性价格模型夸大了独占交易的影响,现实中还需要综合考虑市场圈定效应和投资增进效应。独占交易契约的签订会对第三者产生负外部性,从第三者那里抽取的剩余会按照契约里的规定在签约双方进行分配。     

基于心理契约违背的顾客行为

基于营销学领域的心理契约理论,界定了顾客心理契约违背的内涵。以餐饮业为例,实证检验了顾客心理契约违背与顾客感知自身义务、抱怨行为倾向和转换意向之间的关系。研究结果表明:顾客心理契约违背对顾客的自身义务感知、直接抱怨倾向、间接抱怨倾向、私下抱怨倾向、第三方抱怨和转换意向等具有负向影响。     

Audits or Distortions: The Optimal Scheme to Enforce Self‐Employment Income Taxes

I investigate the optimal auditing scheme for a revenue‐maximizing tax collection agency that observes not only reported profits, but also a single factor of production at each firm. Each firm is owned by a single entrepreneur whose managerial ability is random. The optimal auditing scheme is discontinuous and nonmonotone in ability. In intermediate audit costs, less productive entrepreneurs face auditing probabilities that increase in ability, whereas the ablest ones are not audited. Finally, the effective tax rate is higher in the middle of the managerial ability distribution; thus, the overall regressive (or progressive) bias that arises from evasion is unknown.     

The fog of fraud – Mitigating fraud by strategic ambiguity

Most insurance companies publish few data on the occurrence and detection of insurance fraud. This stands in contrast to the previous literature on costly state verification, which has shown that it is optimal to commit to an auditing strategy. The credible announcement of thoroughly auditing claim reports is a powerful deterrent. Yet, we show that uncertainty about fraud detection can be an effective strategy to deter ambiguity-averse agents from reporting false insurance claims. If, in addition, the auditing costs of the insurers are heterogeneous, it can be optimal not to commit, because committing to a fraud-detection strategy eliminates the ambiguity about auditing. Thus, strategic ambiguity can be an equilibrium outcome in the market. Even competition does not force firms to provide the relevant information. This finding is also relevant in other auditing settings, like tax enforcement.     

“公司+农户”违约反应的静态理论模型

高违约率已经成为目前订单农业面临的重要问题。由于面临对方违约,另一方可能有多种选择,现有文献关于违约后签约方的行为反应从两个极端理论假设进行了推演。本文遵循Volker Beckmann和Silke Boger的思路,建立了一个分析农户和公司采取法律行动的简单静态的理论分析模型,以预测其行动取向。认为随着社会经济的发展,司法效率的提高,公司和农户的信用状况将会改善,农户和公司的生产规模也会扩大,违约行为就会减少,公司或者农户针对违约的行为选择也会做出相应改变。     

论中国审计资源配置方式的特殊性及其优化

审计资源配置的目标以社会需求为导向，以效益性为核心。审计资源配置的方式应是计划与市场相结合。并从宏观与微观两个层面，制定审计资源配置的具体优化措施。