Task Assignmentand Agency Structures

This paper considers an agency model in which a principal delegates an agent authority to choose investment projects. The performance of the project depends stochastically on the agent's evaluation and operating efforts. The paper examines the conditions under which the principal prefers to assign production to a second agent. It is shown that the tasks will be assigned to two agents of the agent chooses an unobservable operating effort. The tasks will be assigned to one agent if the agent's evaluation and operating efforts are both unobservable and if disutilities of efforts are large relative to the profit from the risky project.     

Limited Liability and Bonus Contracts

This paper studies the nature of incentive contracts between a risk-neutral principal and a risk-neutral agent under the constraint that the agent's liability is limited. A necessary and sufficient condition is derived for the existence of a first-best contract under this constraint, and a bonus-based contract is shown to be the most efficient contractual form. Implications of bonus contracts are also discussed.     

Optimal Contracts for Long-Term Decisions and the Threat of Dismissal

This paper studies a simple agency model where an agent's decision can affect his or her own future payoffs as well as the principal's. The threat of dismissal becomes an important part of an incentive scheme even if the principal can use the performance-based wage contract. However, if the agent's future payoffs depend on the past realized performance, but not on the past decision directly, or if the agent is risk-neutral, it is not optimal to use the threat of dismissal. As the agent's discretion over his future payoffs increases, the principal relies more on the threat of dismissal but less on the wage contract.     

Accrual-based compensation,depreciation and investment decisions

The paper studies the usefulness of accruals relative to cash flows for performance measurement in short-term contracts, if an agent undertakes activities with long-term and short-term consequences. It characterizes an optimal depreciation method for incentive purposes, and shows that it is not consistent with traditional depreciation methods. Rather, it aligns the performance measure with the expected long-term consequences of the investment, and shifts away compensation risk from the agent. The paper also identifies conditions under which accruals outperform cash flows as a performance measure even if the agent can manipulate the depreciation method.     

A Test of the Resource-Based Model Using Baseball Free Agents

This paper examines a nearly untested premise of the resource-based view of the firm: managers can exploit uncertainty about a factor's true value to generate returns. Our results show that empirically validating this basic proposition is difficult and potentially impossible, despite our use of a rather simple empirical setting. While market imperfections appear to underlie the payment of baseball free agents, we cannot easily determine whether this imperfection constitutes a return or not. In addition, while we find convincing evidence of uncertainty underlying owner's expectations of a free agent's performance potential, it is not clear whether team owners can exploit this uncertainty by amassing superior informational strategies or investing in complementary assets. Our difficulty in testing resource-based propositions suggests limitations to the theory's practicality.     

Bargaining over an uncertain outcome:¶the role of beliefs

We study the Nash bargaining solution of a problem in which two agents bargain over an uncertain outcome. Under the assumptions of risk neutrality and of constant absolute risk aversion, we study the way that the solution varies, ex ante, when we vary the beliefs of one agent. Changing an agent's beliefs in a way that makes them “more distant” from the other agent's beliefs makes the second agent better off. Received: 10 May 2001 / Accepted: 22 August 2001     

BOT项目中风险分担模型研究

本文从BOT项目中风险分担机制的原则出发,论述了在政府规制的框架下就风险分担问题制定参与约束和激励相容约束的必要性,提出内部风险代理的风险分担机制,并建立模型进行分析,力图使BOT项目的风险分担计划可接受和可管理。     

Asset pricing with endogenous aspirations

We develop the classical asset pricing analysis assuming that the representative agent is characterized by endogenous aspirations. The agent's aspirations at time t are given by a linear combination of the standard of living (habit) at time t (the "forward" part) and of the conditional expectation at t of the habit at the end of the agent's life (the "backward" part). With this process we capture the fact that the agent's preferences are affected by what he plans to do in the future. Under certain conditions, the risk premium turns out to be higher than that obtained with an additive expected utility when both the forward and the backward parts affect the utility negatively.     

Financial risk taking in the presence of correlated non-financial background risk

This paper characterizes the stochastic deterioration resulting from taking a zero-mean financial risk in the presence of correlated non-financial background risk. We show in particular that it has an equivalent stochastic order as well as a necessary and sufficient “integral condition” that implies and is implied by a particular sense in which the stochastic deterioration can be decomposed into a “correlation increase” and a “marginal risk increase”. We further characterize a measure of aversion to the stochastic deterioration. These characterizations provide for a more general framework for formulating concepts of increases in risk and correlation and for better understanding risk management decisions governed by individuals’ attitudes to them.     

Project selection and audited accrual measurement in a multi-task setting

This paper studies monitoring and accrual measurement in a principal-agent setting. The advantage of the principal-agent setting is that it allows accrual measurement to be explicitly connected to monitoring and to encompass questions of managerial behaviour and communication incentives. It also allows the analysis to take place in a setting where competing and complementary sources of information are available. Here the accrual measurement is used to discipline other, perhaps more timely, sources of information and to carry information itself. The argument rests on a two-period agency setting. The usual moral hazard story is expanded to include the agent also observing .a potential project opportunity (e.g. an additional customer, a labour-saving opportunity or whatever). This creates an interest in monitoring the agent's project selection. This monitoring may, it turns out, be useful for purposes of controlling the familiar short-run versus long-run tension or for better managing short-run incentives. Accrual questions enter in terms of allocating the project's up-front cost across the two periods, thereby separating expenditure from expense. In information-content terms, though, this turns out, given that cashflow is observed, to be equivalent to a monitor story that reports on project selection.     

Managing Risks in Complex Projects

Dealing effectively with risks in complex projects is difficult and requires management interventions that go beyond simple analytical approaches. This is one finding of a major field study into risk management practices and business processes of 35 major product developments in 17 high‐technology companies. Almost one‐half of the contingencies that occur are not being detected before they impact project performance. Yet, the risk‐impact model presented in this article shows that risk does not affect all projects equally but depends on the effectiveness of collective managerial actions dealing with specific contingencies. The results of this study discuss why some organizations are more successful in detecting risks early in the project life cycle, and in decoupling risk factors from work processes before they impact project performance. The field data suggest that effective project risk management involves an intricately linked set of variables, related to work process, organizational environment, and people. Some of the best success scenarios point to the critical importance of recognizing and dealing with risks early in their development. This requires broad involvement and collaboration across all segments of the project team and its environment, and sophisticated methods for assessing feasibilities and usability early and frequently during the project life cycle. Specific managerial actions, organizational conditions, and work processes are suggested for fostering a project environment most conducive to effective cross‐functional communication and collaboration among all stakeholders, a condition important to early risk detection and effective risk management in complex project situations.     

Technological innovation versus non-technological innovation: different conditions in different regional contexts?

This study identifies the conditions that, at a regional level, facilitate the emergence of technological and non-technological innovation. One of the most promising lines in the discussion of the processes of regional innovation lies in explaining the different conditions of the various forms innovation process can take. We use fsQCA methodology to test the model. QCA is a method based on set theory that assumes the influence of certain elements in a specific outcome that depend on the combination of those elements; not just on the levels of the individual elements, as in traditional methods. First, we found that the absence of a single condition appears limiting for both types of innovation, which calls for customized innovation policies tailored to the regional context. Second, we found that some sets of innovation characteristics are sufficient conditions for regions to innovate. Among the selected sets, we found that the combination of firm collaboration and public and private R&D are sufficient for both types of innovation, which should be informative for regional policy. The fsQCA also identified alternative pathways—different for both types of innovation. Collaboration seems to be relevant since it is present in all the configurations for sufficient conditions.     

Why do firms set environmental performance goals?: Some evidence from organizational theory

Organizational goal setting is considered a critical strategic first step for corporations as it provides the basis for developing a roadmap for organizational activity as well as guidance for establishing the metrics to measure progress. Yet despite significant research interest in the environmental performance of corporations, environmental goal setting has received little attention. For example, it is not known why firms set environmental goals. Understanding this goal setting behavior is necessary to develop mechanisms to improve organizations' environmental management and performance. This study uses organizational change models of institutionalism, stakeholder management, natural selection, strategic choice and organizational learning to examine why firms set environmental performance goals. First, propositions related to environmental goal setting are developed from the models. The goal setting propositions use the goals of the US EPA's 33/50 programme, a national voluntary pollution prevention effort which aimed for a 33% reduction in releases by 1993 and a 50% reduction by 1995, as a basis for comparison to individual company goal setting. Next, the toxic release reduction goals of the 118 US corporations who set goals are analysed to determine which organizational change model propositions they support. All five models of organizational change examined here–institutionalism, stakeholder management, natural selection, strategic choice and organizational learning–show some promise in explaining corporate environmental goal setting. The combination of these models leads to the following depiction of the motivation for toxic release reduction. Firms will set goals to reduce toxic releases in an effort to respond to regulators and other factors in the institutional and stakeholder environment. This goal setting is likely to be enhanced if it can be more directly tied to economic benefits such as cost savings or if it is chosen by natural selection. This in turn will promote organizational learning with the end result of better environmental and economic performance. These findings provide some empirical evidence on which to base strategies for improving corporate environmental management. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Managerial Incentives Based on Acquisition of Information

In a moral hazard setting, we model the fact that the agent may get private signals about the final outcome of his effort before the public realization of this outcome. Actions affect both the distribution of the outcome and the quality of the agent's private information. We compare simple contracts, based on output only, with revelation contracts, based on output and messages about signals. Revelation contracts give the agent some discretionary power during the course of the relationship; they are optimal if and only if lowering effort does not increase the quality of private information in the sense of Blackwell (1953). In the context of managerial compensation schemes, the revelation contracts we analyze can be viewed as allowing the agent to exercise an option on the final profits before the realization of these profits. The theory thus provides an alternative justification of the widespread use of stock options in managerial compensation schemes, as opposed to compensation schemes that rely only on salary, bonus, and (restricted) stock plans.     

Value at risk: Is a theoretically consistent axiomatic formulation possible?

This note identifies three properties of a risk measure, the acceptance of all of which implies the acceptance of the VaR risk measure; and the rejection of any one of which implies the rejection of the VaR risk measure. First, a risk measure should reflect weak aversion to losses. Second, only sufficiently likely threats matter. Finally, the risk measurement should be unaffected by how promising the upside may look like. These properties, by themselves, constitute a consistent set of axioms that are necessary and sufficient for the acceptance of the VaR risk measure on a given probability space. The axiomatization highlights a peculiar characteristic of VaR: it ignores the upside, while at the same time neglecting the worse of the downside.     

Relative entropy in sequential decision problems

Consider an agent who faces a sequential decision problem. At each stage the agent takes an action and observes a stochastic outcome (e.g., daily prices, weather conditions, opponents' actions in a repeated game, etc.). The agent's stage-utility depends on his action, the observed outcome and on previous outcomes. We assume the agent is Bayesian and is endowed with a subjective belief over the distribution of outcomes. The agent's initial belief is typically inaccurate. Therefore, his subjectively optimal strategy is initially suboptimal. As time passes information about the true dynamics is accumulated and, depending on the compatibility of the belief with respect to the truth, the agent may eventually learn to optimize. We introduce the notion of relative entropy, which is a natural adaptation of the entropy of a stochastic process to the subjective set-up. We present conditions, expressed in terms of relative entropy, that determine whether the agent will eventually learn to optimize. It is shown that low entropy yields asymptotic optimal behavior. In addition, we present a notion of pointwise merging and link it with relative entropy.     

道路桥梁裂缝溯因与防治管理分析

混凝土为一种土建材料,由于有着诸多的优势,即:所需价格较低、抗压性能理想、原材料充足、耐久能力较强等,从而得到了广泛的应用,这一点充分体现于混凝土桥梁.事实上,它的抗拉强度并不高,极有可能出现开裂,当裂宽大于一定程度时,可能会导致钢筋腐蚀、引起保护层掉落等,在有碍于使用路桥的同时,也留下了一定的安全隐患.本文以某道路桥...     

主成分分析法在投资项目选择的应用研究

文章通过设定新指标、风险调整的内部收益率指标来评价项目的优劣性，从而提供了一种新的项目择优方法。在风险测评的方法中，主成分分析法作为一种客观的方法，能够更好地测量项目所面临的各种复杂风险。     

Stable cost sharing in production allocation games

Suppose that a group of agents have demands for some good. Every agent owns a technology which allows them to produce the good, with these technologies varying in their effectiveness. If all technologies exhibit increasing returns to scale (IRS) then it is always efficient to centralize production of the good, whereas efficiency in the case of decreasing returns to scale (DRS) typically requires to spread production. We search for stable cost allocations while differentiating allocations with homogeneous prices, in which all units produced are traded at the same price, from allocations with heterogeneous prices. For the respective cases of IRS or DRS, it is shown that there always exist stable cost sharing rules with homogeneous prices. Finally, in the general framework (under which there may exist no stable allocation at all) we provide a sufficient condition for the existence of stable allocations with homogeneous prices. This condition is shown to be both necessary and sufficient in problems with unitary demands.     

Equality of opportunity and the alignment of incentives

Under what conditions are the incentives of the members of society more aligned? We address this question in a setup in which individuals choose a policy without knowing who will benefit and who will be hurt by each policy. Our central result identifies a sufficient condition for a measure of disagreement in society, which has been linked to the equilibrium level of rent-seeking, to weakly decrease. This sufficient condition captures increasing equality of opportunity in a specific sense.