Contract Choice: Efficiency and Fairness in Revenue‐Sharing Contracts

We present a simple principal–agent experiment in which the principals are allowed to choose between a revenue‐sharing, a bonus, and a trust contract, to offer to an agent. Our findings suggest that a large majority of experimental subjects choose the revenue‐sharing contract. This choice turns out to be not only the most efficient but also, at the same time, fair. Overall, the distribution of earnings is only mildly skewed towards the principal. We conclude that, under revenue‐sharing contracts, concerns for fairness can be closely associated with the use of monetary incentives.     

A Strategic Implementation of the Shapley Value for the Nested Cost‐Sharing Problem

When agents have different needs for a public facility but serving a given agent allows serving all agents with smaller needs than his without any extra cost, how should the agents divide the cost of the facility among themselves? We provide a strategic implementation of the Shapley value for this class of cost‐sharing problems. We introduce a three‐stage extensive form game that respects individual rationality and show that there is one and only one subgame‐perfect equilibrium outcome of the game. Moreover, it is the allocation assigned by the Shapley value.     

Cost‐Based Anti‐dumping as a Repeated Game

In this paper, we consider anti‐dumping (AD) duties as a tool to facilitate collusion between a domestic and a foreign firm in an infinitely repeated differentiated Bertrand game, where prices are publicly observable and each firm receives a privately observed i.i.d. cost shock in each period. We consider second‐best scenarios, where market‐share or production arrangement with sidepayments is not allowed. We show that there exist equilibrium‐path reciprocal ADs. The collusive (trigger) price is distorted downward compared with complete information benchmark as a trade‐off between diminishing the incentive to deviate and ensuring off‐schedule deviation gains when private cost shocks are highly favourable. The model differs from Green and Porter ( 1984 ) and Rotemberg and Saloner ( 1986 ) in that it is the private cost shocks as opposed to public demand shocks that necessitate modifications of collusion. In conclusion, AD policy may encourage collusion, and therefore, unless the source of market imperfection is carefully examined, laissez faire might be a better choice.     

企业理论:契约,所有权,委托代理

新古典理论主要从技术角度来分析企业,将企业视为黑箱。而新制度学派的企业理论则把目光投向了企业内部,其重点是企业的契约性质理论、所有权安排理论、委托代理理论。尽管对企业理论进行划分和整理具有一定的难度,文章仍然试图以企业的契约理论的递进层次为线索,按照理论的研究领域和核心问题给出一个解释,并给出了企业的契约理论内部框架。     

Exclusion via Non‐Exclusive Contracts

We establish that non‐linear vertical contracts can allow an incumbent to exclude an upstream rival in a setting that does not rely on the exclusivity of the incumbent's contracts with downstream firms or any limits on distribution channels available to the incumbent or rival. The optimal contract we describe is a three‐part quantity discounting contract that involves the payment of an allowance to a downstream distributor and a marginal wholesale price below the incumbent's marginal cost for sufficiently large quantities. The optimal contract is robust to allowing parties to renegotiate contracts in case of entry.     

国有企业所有权分享安排及创新研究

我国国有企业所有权安排经历了一个由国家独享到国家、经营者和生产者分享的过程。虽然中间有一些反复，但始终是向分享方向发展。国有企业所有权分享安排分别是以剩余索取权安排形式和归属性控制权安排形式进行。国有企业所有权分享安排调动了经营者和生产者的积极性，提高了企业效率。但还存在较大差距：分享安排进展缓慢，忽视人力资本产权，等等。     

Cost‐reducing R&D Investment,Labor Market and Trade

This paper constructs a two‐country model in which oligopolistic firms export goods and undertake cost‐reducing R&D investment. Each country imposes tariffs. A decrease in the tariff rates in both countries decreases cost‐reducing R&D investment.     

Long‐Term Contracts,Irreversibility, and Uncertainty

Long‐term contracting implies contracting based on expected future demand. In this paper, I develop a multiperiod procurement model where, once the actual level of demand is realized, the irreversible initial provision level may be supplemented by additional provisions. This paper shows that, with the possibility of additional upward adjustments, the first‐period provision level will be lower than when no additional adjustments are possible. This reduction in first‐period provision level is higher under complete contracting than under incomplete contracting, and because of the reduction in information rents it yields a higher expected utility to the principal but lower total welfare.     

所有权共享安排失灵的解释

企业理论关于现代公司所有权安排的一个命题是，剩余索取权和剩余控制权对应。由委托人和代理人共享企业所有权，是实现企业价值最大化和代理成本最小化的最优所有权安排。本文分析了所有权共享安排的两个缺陷：一是所有权共享安排命题的隐含假设不一定成立；二是忽视了现代公司的产权博弈契约性质和公共领域属性及其导致的共同财产问题，解释了所有权共享安排失灵的原因，强调了外部权威对签约后的机会主义者履约的重要性。     

Job Protection versus Contracts At‐Will: Trading‐Off Entrenchment and Shirking

I compare two types of employment contracts: those offering job protection and at‐will contracts. Their respective performances reveal the following trade‐off: at‐will contracts provide cheaper incentives for agents not to shirk, but they can induce the opportunistic actions of agents to make themselves less dispensable (“entrenchment”). One implication of the model is that more senior managers, such as chief executive officers, should receive more protection, for example, through contracts that are explicitly not at‐will or contracts that specify a longer duration.     

Corporate Tax Reductions,Cross‐Border Ownership and Welfare

In this paper, a three‐country model incorporating the cross‐border ownership of stock and international firm relocation is constructed. Using this model, the effects of a reduction in the corporate tax on welfare in all three countries is examined. The findings indicate that if the country undertaking the reduction is moderately rich, and one of the two remaining countries is rich while the other country is poor, the tax reduction not only brings about a positive effect on its own welfare, but also increases the welfare of the rich foreign country and lowers that of the poor foreign country.     

Investment Decisions,Financial Flows,and Self‐Enforcing Contracts*

This article studies the role of risk sharing in dynamic credit relationships that are secured by physical collateral. It is shown that, when borrowers and lenders cannot commit not to terminate relationships (through default in the first case and liquidation in the second), overinvestment is optimal. Overinvestment facilitates risk sharing in this context: It occurs in expectation of periods in which lenders are unwilling to supply all the funds necessary to achieve complete risk sharing. Typically, overinvestment happens when investment decreases; it slows down the pace at which the capital stock is reduced and therefore results in production smoothing.     

Surplus Sharing with a Two‐Stage Mechanism

In this article we consider environments where agents jointly produce a private output good by contributing privately owned resources. An efficient outcome may not be realized due to strategic behavior and conflicting interests of the agents. We construct a two‐stage mechanism, building on a Varian mechanism. The modified mechanism ensures an equilibrium for a large class of preferences and guarantees the feasibility of outcomes.     

所有制、涓滴效应与共享发展:一个政治经济学分析

传统涓滴理论作为西方主流发展经济学的重要组成部分,源自西方社会报酬结构演进中对利益冲突的行为选择与思潮迭代。这一理论逻辑的根本缺陷在于其遮蔽了社会制度的内在蕴涵和社会结构的本质特征。将经济增长、收入分配和贫困三者关系置于社会生产关系的视域下考察:生产关系性质决定分配关系性质继而决定涓滴发展的实质,所有制是涓滴效应实现的核心机制。涓滴效应在不同经济体中阻滞或畅通实质上受所有制关系规定的“发展为了谁”的增长逻辑支配。“发展为了资本”和“发展为了人民”是两种截然不同的发展道路:前者从私有制出发,沿着自下而上的负向涓滴路径,必然导向两极分化;后者从公有制出发,沿着自上而下的正向涓滴路径,必将导向共同富裕。     

Collective Organizations versus Relative Performance Contracts: Inequality, Risk Sharing, and Moral Hazard

This paper studies collective economic organizations that share risk and mitigate moral hazard and compares them with relative performance contracts. Information-constrained optimal distributions of organizations and contracts are shown to be functions of the underlying primitives, in particular, the distribution of Pareto weights, and hence degree of inequality. Internal inequality of a potential, local group is a force for collective organization. That is, multi-agent organizations exist in order to extract wealth from some but not necessarily all members. The group organization is also shown to be information-constrained Pareto optimal at extremes of local wealth relative to an outsider. But the group organization is susceptible to both agents simultaneously deviating, colluding against the outsider, and this distortion makes an individualistic, relative performance contract an attractive alternative. More generally, organizations, contracts, and allocations are jointly determined. These implications could be distinguished in cross-sectional, time series data. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D70, D82.     

Rent‐Sharing and Workers' Bargaining Power: An Empirical Cross‐Country/ Cross‐Industry Panel Analysis

In this paper, we study how rents are shared between capital and labour, using industry‐level panel data for 19 OECD countries from 1988 through to 2007. The first step is an explanation of the rent‐creation process. We provide evidence of a significant impact of regulation on value‐added prices at the industry level relative to the value‐added price for the overall economy (rent). In the second step, we dissect the value‐added sharing process. By running ordinary least‐squares and instrumental variables estimations, we obtain results that confirm the Blanchard–Giavazzi prediction: the impact of rents on the capital share depends on workers' bargaining power.     

Revenue Sharing and Information Exchange under Non‐discriminatory Taxation*

The international exchange of tax information, and its merits compared to withholding taxation, has emerged as a central topic in international tax policy. We characterize and compare the outcomes that emerge, in a two‐country world, with and without information exchange, under the assumption that countries are unable to tax residents and non‐residents differentially. The analysis focuses on the role of asymmetries in country size (capturing a key feature of tax havens) and on the impact and potential desirability of schemes to share the revenue raised by withholding (as under the new EU savings tax arrangements) or (more innovatively) as a consequence of information exchange. We show that, irrespective of any difference in country size, it is in the interests of both countries, in terms of tax revenue, that all revenue collected from non‐residents be transferred to the residence country—which would entail taking the EU practice even further from the norm, but is currently the standard in relation to information exchange. A withholding scheme with revenue fully reallocated in this way gives both countries more revenue than does information sharing, whatever the allocation under the latter.     

共同机构所有权与企业创新：协同治理与信息共享视角

共同机构所有权能够强化行业联系,推动信息、技术和经验跨边界整合共享,实现外部性内部化,促进生产要素向企业集聚。以2007—2020年中国沪深A股上市公司为例,考察共同机构所有权对企业创新的影响。结果发现,共同机构所有权能够促进企业创新,其联结程度和持股比例越高,越有利于企业创新,且经过倾向得分匹配法、Heckman二阶段回归等内生性检验和敏感性测试后,结论依然成立。进一步研究发现,共同机构所有权通过发挥协同治理效应和信息共享效应推动企业创新发展,并且共同机构所有权对企业创新的促进作用在市场化进程较低、行业竞争程度较高的样本中更为显著。结论可进一步提升对共同机构所有权这一新兴市场现象的认知,同时为决策部门制定政策方案提供参考。     

Investment Liberalization and Cross‐Border Acquisitions: The Effect of Partial Foreign Ownership

This paper investigates the optimal strategy for a multinational to conduct FDI. We find that the incentives to use acquisition rather than greenfield investment change significantly if the multinational is allowed to have already an ownership interest in the target local firm before the market is fully liberalized. Interestingly, when investment costs are sufficiently high, the multinational prefers not entering the market at all with partial ownership in place, whereas a cross‐border takeover would be the optimal entry mode otherwise. For intermediate levels of entry costs, holding a stake in the local producer reverses positively the profitability of a full acquisition compared to greenfield investment.