国有控股公司治理中合谋防御的机制设计

本文对委托人、监督者和代理人的主体进行重新界定,并对无合谋防御机制时的情形作了分析,再针对合谋行为设计出监督者主导和委托人主导两种合谋防御机制。在监督者主导的防御机制中,委托人事前给出一组契约,授权监督者向代理人提供子契约,委托人提供的契约可使得监督者和代理人所得到的转移支付都不小于其实施合谋时的信息租金,让监督者和代理人没有激励进行合谋。在委托人主导型的防御机制中,委托人同时与监督者和代理人签订契约,如代理人谎报自己的成本类型,委托人会对代理人实施罚金,而给予监督者奖励,让监督者有动力积极履行职责,且能激励高成本类型的代理人降低生产成本。     

Collusion, Delegation and Supervision with Soft Information

This paper shows that supervision with soft information is valuable whenever supervisors and supervisees collude under asymmetric information and proceeds then to derive an Equivalence Principle between organizational forms of supervisory and productive activities. We consider an organization with an agent privately informed on his productivity and a risk averse supervisor getting signals on the agent's type. In a centralized organization, the principal can communicate and contract with both the supervisor and the agent. However, these two agents can collude against the principal. In a decentralized organization, the principal only communicates and contracts with the supervisor who in turn sub-contracts with the agent. We show that the two organizations achieve the same outcome. We discuss this equivalence and provide various comparative statics results to assess the efficiency of supervisory structures.     

On the design of incentive schemes under moral hazard and adverse selection

This paper characterizes a class of optimal incentive schemes in a simple principal–agent model which allows for moral hazard and adverse selection. We show that incentive compatible allocation can always be (approximately) implemented through a menu of quadratic incentive schemes. It is also proved that the set of incentive compatible allocations is independent of the distribution of the additive uncertainty which affects the outcome. Informational requirements and economic interpretation of quadratic and linear schemes are discussed.     

Role of linking mechanisms in multitask agency with hidden information

We investigate the adverse selection problem where a principal delegates multiple tasks to an agent. We characterize the virtually implementable social choice functions by using the linking mechanism proposed by Jackson and Sonnenschein (2007) [20] that restricts the message spaces. The principal does not require any incentive wage schemes and can therefore avoid any information rent and welfare loss. We show the resemblance between the functioning of this message space restriction and that of incentive wage schemes. We also extend the results of the single-agent model to the multi-agent model.     

Reciprocal Supervision,Collusion and Organizational Design

We study the design of supervisory functions in an organization with one principal and two agents. Each agent can perform supervision activities regarding the other agent. We characterize the way the principal must structure incentive payments to avoid any collusive activity between agents. In particular, it is shown that better mutual information between agents may hurt the principal. The other main result is the possibility that it may be better to give up one supervisory function or to have a third party be the supervisor if possible. Finally, we show that such a dual supervisory structure raises the possibility that letting collusion happen may be the best policy.     

Strategic obscurity in the forecasting of disasters

A principal acquires information about a shock and then discloses it to an agent. After the disclosure, the principal and agent each decide whether to take costly preparatory actions that yield mutual benefits but only when the shock strikes. The principal maximizes his expected payoff by ex ante committing to the quality of his information, and the disclosure rule. We show that even when the acquisition of perfect information is costless, the principal may optimally acquire imperfect information when his own action eliminates the agent's incentive to take action against the risk.     

Modelling countervailing incentives in adverse selection models: A synthesis

This paper is concerned with countervailing incentives in the adverse selection problems that typically arise in principal-agent relationships when the agent has private information. These incentives are present when the agent is tempted to either overstate or understate his private information depending upon the specific realization of his type. These problems were first analyzed by Lewis and Sappington (1989) and have been characterized and extended by Maggi and Rodríguez-Clare (1995a) and Jullien (2000). In this paper we propose a simple method of characterizing countervailing incentives in which the key element is the analysis of the properties of the full information problem. Our method for solving the principal problem, once identified the presence of countervailing incentives, follows closely the Baron’s (1989) approach, which does not require using optimal control theory. The methodology we present can be easily applied to many different economic settings. For example, in health economics, an insurer (or a hospital manager) might act as a principal and a physician as an agent. In labor settings, an employer may play the role of principal and a worker may act as the agent. In regulated industries, the regulatory agency might act as a principal designing incentive schemes for firms (the agents). In environmental regulation or resource exploitation, the principal might be an international agency dealing with national governments or firms.     

The efficiency of bonus-or-terminate incentive schemes under subjective evaluations

We study a repeated principal–agent model with subjective evaluations. We construct simple bonus-or-terminate incentive schemes. In these schemes, the principal evaluates the agent every T periods. The principal pays a bonus and asks the agent to work for T more periods if the evaluation is positive. The relationship is terminated if the evaluation is negative. The inefficiencies in these schemes vanish as the agent can be more frequently evaluated. This result holds generally under objective or subjective evaluations.     

The Economics of Clear Advice and Extreme Options

I study a principal–agent model in which the agent collects information and then chooses a verifiable action. I show that the principal can find it desirable to constrain the agent's action set even though there is no disagreement about the ranking of actions ex post . The elimination or penalization of „intermediate” actions, which are optimal when information is poor, improves incentives for information collection. I characterize optimal action sets when the agent is infinitely risk averse with respect to income shocks and optimal incentive schemes when the agent is risk neutral.     

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.     

The principal-agent problem with a satisficing agent

The principal-agent problem is formulated with an expected utility maximizing principal and a satisficing agent. If the outcome set is finite and if there is only one aspiration level, then there are always optimal incentive schemes which can be represented by vectors having only the unique aspiration level and zero as coordinate values. The relation between the monotone likelihood ratio property and the monotonicity of optimal incentive schemes is investigated. This is done not only in the above model, but also in a continuous model with outcomes in an interval, which is much more interesting.     

Why biased agencies could be the best monitors

We analyze the delegation of anti-cheating enforcement to national agencies in a Tullock contest in which competitors expend resources to win a prize. In such a setting, there are two sources of inefficiency. First, monitoring is beneficial to the principal and costly to the agent. The resulting incentive problems and solutions are well described in the literature. However, since cheating is a hidden act, the incentive effect worsens and standard solutions fail to establish an efficient outcome. Second, agencies may prefer a particular outcome of the contest and may prefer their own compatriots to prevail over others, which we label the bias effect. We show that the proper monitoring design can solve both problems and transform the bias effect into intrinsic motivation.     

DYNAMIC INCENTIVE CONTRACTS WITH UNCORRELATED PRIVATE INFORMATION AND HISTORY-DEPENDENT OUTCOMES*

In previous papers on dynamic incentive contracts, the dynamic structure of the principal-agent relationship arises exclusively from the ability of the principal to learn about the hidden information over time. In this paper we deal with a different source of dynamics, which is considered standard in all areas of economics other than the information literature: we study situations where current opportunities depend on past and current actions, notwithstanding any information conveyed by the actions. Standard examples include investment, "Learning by doing", and R&D. In order to focus on this neglected source of dynamics, we restrict our attention to situations involving asymmetric information in each period, but without any intertemporal informational correlation, so that no dynamic effect arises directly from informational asymmetrie. This makes comparisons with static results both easier and more interesting.     

Robustness of simple menus of contracts in cost-based procurement

We consider a model of cost-based procurement in which the principal faces Knightian uncertainty about the agent's preferences for cost reduction. We show that a particularly simple incentive scheme—a menu comprising a fixed-price contract and a cost-reimbursement contract—minimizes the maximum expected payment, where this maximum is taken over the set of possible agent preferences. For some parameters of the problem, a range of alternative incentive schemes also satisfy this criterion. We show that the simple incentive scheme is not weakly dominated by any of the alternatives: there does not exist an alternative mechanism for which the expected payment is no higher for all realizations of the agent's preferences and strictly lower for some realization.     

Competition and the reform of incentive schemes in the regulated sector

We consider a regulation problem with complete contracting in a principal–agent model with adverse selection and review within this model the various channels by which external competition parameters affect incentives within the regulated firm. The channels are: the principal’s information, the principal’s objective function, the agent’s incentive constraint, the agent’s participation constraint. We consider in particular a better information structure, a threat of liquidation, a fight for talent, a more efficient private sector, and the existence of better substitutes. We characterize in each case the conditions under which the effect on incentives is positive.     

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.     

The role of boundary solutions in principal-agent problems of the Holmström-Milgrom type

The paper extends the Holmström-Milgrom [B. Holmström, P. Milgrom, Aggregation and linearity in the provision of intertemporal incentives, Econometrica 55 (1987) 303-328] analysis of intertemporal incentive provision to allow for the implementation of actions on the boundary of the feasible set. Boundary actions provide the principal with some freedom in choosing incentive schemes. This can be used to reduce premia. The paper characterizes optimal incentive schemes for the continuous-time Brownian-motion model and its discrete-time approximations. Linearity of incentive schemes in “accounts” is confirmed. However, for models with effort costs depending only on mean returns, the availability of boundary actions destroys the linearity of optimal incentive schemes in profits.     

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.     

Regulation and Coordination of International Environmental Externalities with Incomplete Information and Costly Public Funds

In this article, we study cross-border externalities in a game played by two principal-agent pairs with adverse selection. Each firm/agent is located in one country and generates pollution by producing complementary or substitute goods, sold on a common market. A fraction of pollution is transferred from one country to another. Each regulator/principal is imperfectly informed about the marginal cost of his domestic firm and accordingly uses secret incentive contracts with costly public funds. We show the necessity of cooperation between competing regulators to effectively internalize all the damages caused to the environment, while reaching the first best. If the level of uncertainty is sufficiently low, we obtain an infinity of noncooperative Bayesian differentiable equilibria, which may necessitate competing regulators to coordinate on an equilibrium. Such coordination constitutes an incentive for competing regulators to cooperate. Our major result states that under some circumstances asymmetric information relaxes the transborder externality problem. Indeed, we show that, when there is a major transfer of pollution and firms' marginal costs are sufficiently high, competing regulators are better off under uncertainty. Therefore, asymmetry of information can have the very consequence of generating regulation that is too strict from the domestic viewpoint but that improves social efficiency when the benefits to both countries are taken into account.     

Beneficial collusion in corruption control: The case of nonmonetary penalties

We analyze a corruption model where a principal seeks to control an agent's corruption by supplementing a costless noncollusive outside detector such as the media with a collusive internal supervisor. The principal's objective is to minimize the overall costs, made up of enforcement costs and social costs of corruption. If the penalties on the corrupt agent and a failing supervisor are nonmonetary in nature and yet the two parties can engage in monetary side-transfers, the principal may stand to benefit by allowing supervisor–agent collusion. This benefit may even prompt the principal to actively encourage collusion by hiring a dishonest supervisor in strict preference over an honest supervisor.