Message-contingent delegation

The paper studies the role of delegation and authority in a principal-agent relation in which a non-contractible action has to be taken. The agent has private information relevant for the principal, but has policy preferences different from the principal. Consequently, an information revelation problem arises. I consider a partially incomplete contracting environment with contractibility of messages and decision rights and with transferable utility. I contribute to the literature by allowing for message-contingent delegation and by deriving the optimal partially incomplete contract. It is shown that message-contingent delegation creates incentives for information revelation and may outperform unconditional authority and unconditional delegation.     

Reputation versus information: The delegation policy when the principal has reputational concerns

We analyze the delegation policy when the principal has reputational concerns. Both the principal and the agent can be either good or biased; the good players prefer the correct decision, while the biased ones prefer a high action even though it may be wrong. An evaluator who forms the principal's reputation may or may not be able to observe who makes the decision. When the evaluator cannot observe the allocation of authority, the principal shares the credit and blame with the agent. Although delegation can improve the quality of decision making because the agent has better information, it may also hurt the good principal's reputation because the high action may be taken by the biased agent while the blame will be shared when it is wrong. Thus, the good principal has a tendency to keep too much authority to maintain her reputation. By contrast, when the evaluator can observe the allocation of authority, delegation becomes a signaling device for the good type of principal to differentiate herself from the biased one. This results in an excessive allocation of authority toward the agent.     

Optimal Delegation

We analyse the design of decision rules by a principal who faces an informed but biased agent and who is unable to commit to contingent transfers. The contracting problem reduces to a delegation problem in which the principal commits to a set of decisions from which the agent chooses his preferred one. We characterize the optimal delegation set and perform comparative statics on the principal's willingness to delegate and the agent's discretion. We also provide conditions for interval delegation to be optimal and show that they are satisfied when the agent's preferences are sufficiently aligned. Finally, we apply our results to the regulation of a privately informed monopolist and to the design of legislatives rules.     

Authority and communication in the laboratory

We report findings from experiments on two delegation–communication games. An uninformed principal chooses whether to fully delegate her decision-making authority to an informed agent or to retain the authority and communicate with the agent via cheap talk to obtain decision-relevant information. In the game in which the delegation outcome is payoff-dominated by both the truthful and the babbling communication outcomes, we find that principal-subjects almost always retain their authority and agent-subjects communicate truthfully. Significantly more choices of delegation than of communication are observed in another game in which the delegation outcome payoff-dominates the unique babbling communication outcome; yet there is a non-negligible fraction of principal-subjects who holds on to their authority and agent-subjects who transmits some information. A level-k analysis of the game indicates that a principal-subject “under-delegates” due to the belief that her less-than-fully-strategic opponent will provide information; such belief is in turn consistent with the actual play.     

The political economy of corporatism in medicine: Self-regulation or cartel management?

This paper seeks to explain why delegation of regulatory authority to medical associations (medical Corporatism) is so prominent in health care. It argues that the interests of politicians and physicians in limiting access to medical markets rather than the interests of patients in the control of quality of medical care determines this delegation. Recent trends in physician densities, their impacts on physician incomes, and rates of return to a medical career in several industrialized countries are adduced as evidence to support this claim.     

Economic Regulation and the Courts 1982 to 2001: Ten Cases That Made a Difference

The author has selected ten landmark cases for their likely impact on regulation and regulatory economics. His choice is unashamedly his own personal one and he recognizes that other legal scholars would not make the identical selection. However, there is likely to be substantial agreement on the importance of a majority of the cases. The ten cases are concerned with five themes: antitrust policy, contracting around the regulatory state, constitutional and contractual limits on regulation, the distribution of regulatory authority, and economics in the courtroom.     

部分契约、控制权转移与揭示机制

区别于完全契约和不完全契约理论,基于对名义控制权和实际控制权的区分,Aghion等(2002;2003)提出部分契约概念,强调代理人人力资本的重要性和实际控制权的可转移性.在此基础上,我们放松Aghion等(2003)的研究假设,基于贝叶斯法则对该理论做一般化分析并对不同状态下转移控制机的机制效力进行比较.我们强调在更一般的情况下,除了引人价格机制以外,引入声誉作为保障该信息揭示机制效力的激励约束机制是必要的且比价格机制列为适用.该理论对于解释信誉,授权等理论问题,以及指导中国公司治理实践具有参考价值.     

多代理人情形下的授权结构与激励

现有关于授权与激励的文献侧重于考察"是否授权"的问题。本文研究不同授权结构之间激励效果的比较。沿袭Aghion and Tirole(1997),本文在"一个委托人-两个代理人"的框架下,区分了"平行授权"、"优先授权"和"次第授权"三种授权结构。我们发现,项目带给代理人的净私人收益越大、代理人之间异质性越强、代理人之间的正外部性越弱(或负外部性越强),次第授权和优先授权越可能好过平行授权;反之,则平行授权越可能占优。当项目必须完成的时间越紧急,平行授权或优先授权越可能好过次第授权;反之,则次第授权越可能占优。我们的发现从激励和授权角度对组织(比如,董事会、公司、议会、政府机构)内部授权结构的一些现象提供了一些解释。     

多层科层中的最优序贯授权与"一刀切"政策

沿袭Tirole(1986)的委托人一中间人一代理人科层结构,本文研究了当委托人不能直接管理代理人时的最优序贯授权问题。在该授权博弈中,委托人通过审慎设计中间人职权范围,影响其对代理入的授权行为,从而激励代理人更有效地提供和使用信息。我们发现,当下属之间利益偏差方向一致时,即中间人较委托入更愿意扩大代理人权限时,采用文献中常关注的“区间授权”(Holm—strom,1977)形式,委托人可以实现其直接向代理人授权时的最优结果。但是,如果下属间利益偏差方向相反,即中间人希望减小代理人权限时,“区间授权”将不再是最优。为了更好地影响控制中间人向代理人的次第授权行为,在最优序贯授权方案中委托人将移除部分中间选项。移除选项数目的多少取决于中间人的利益偏差程度。同授权与激励方面的文献不同,本文表明,即使在信息结构给定的条件下,移除中间项将作为科层中的控制工具,成为最优授权方案的一个特征。本文的发现从激励和授权角度对现行的一些法规执行实践中的“一刀切”政策(比如,“醉驾入刑”、大学招生录取等)提供了一些解释。     

The Importance of Bureaucratic Hierarchy: Conflicting Preferences,Incomplete Control,and Policy Outcomes

Existing theories of legislative delegation feature spatial models in which a principal chooses a single agent to whom to delegate authority. In the canonical model, the ally principle holds – the principal picks the ideologically closest agent. However, elected politicians typically decide whether to delegate not to an individual but to an institution, which consists of many individuals with differing preferences. To improve on existing work, we model delegation with bureaucratic hierarchy. Our results show that hierarchy is sufficient to undercut the ally principle. Indeed, capturing the logic of delegation and its results requires incorporating agency structure, especially the costs of an agency head controlling her subordinates resulting in incomplete control, as different structures are associated with different policy outcomes even when the same people constitute a bureaucracy. We also demonstrate that integrating hierarchy has important implications for a wide range of considerations, such as agency structural choice and the measurement of agency ideal points.     

多层科层中的最优序贯授权与"一刀切"政策

沿袭Tirole(1986)的委托人-中间人-代理人科层结构,本文研究了当委托人不能直接管理代理人时的最优序贯授权问题。在该授权博弈中,委托人通过审慎设计中间人职权范围,影响其对代理人的授权行为,从而激励代理人更有效地提供和使用信息。我们发现,当下属之间利益偏差方向一致时,即中间人较委托人更愿意扩大代理人权限时,采用文献中常关注的"区间授权"(Holmstrom,1977)形式,委托人可以实现其直接向代理人授权时的最优结果。但是,如果下属间利益偏差方向相反,即中间人希望减小代理人权限时,"区间授权"将不再是最优。为了更好地影响控制中间人向代理人的次第授权行为,在最优序贯授权方案中委托人将移除部分中间选项。移除选项数目的多少取决于中间人的利益偏差程度。同授权与激励方面的文献不同,本文表明,即使在信息结构给定的条件下,移除中间项将作为科层中的控制工具,成为最优授权方案的一个特征。本文的发现从激励和授权角度对现行的一些法规执行实践中的"一刀切"政策(比如,"醉驾入刑"、大学招生录取等)提供了一些解释。     

Contestability, Complementary Inputs and Contracting: The Case of Harbour Towage

It has been argued that competitive tendering for contracts can be used to overcome problems of natural monopoly and to make markets 'contestable'. The recent Productivity Commission (2002) report into harbour towage in Australia noted the potential benefits of competition for contracts. Using the example of harbour towage, we investigate these claims when competitive tendering involves one segment of a vertical production chain. We show that direct customer contracting will not result in a perfectly contestable outcome if there is a complementary input provider with market power. We consider whether this situation improves when customers delegate the contracting process. Delegation only improves the outcome from the customers' perspective if the authority is able to receive side payments from the towage operators. Such side payments a priori would appear to be against the interests of the customers. We show, however, that side payments help the port authority to overcome the problems of market power, benefiting both the port authority and the customers. Further, these contracting outcomes are socially preferred to the unregulated outcome where port authorities and towage operators set prices and quality independently. This analysis sheds light and generally supports the Productivity Commission's recommendations.     

Volatility in the knowledge economy

Summary. We seek to explain the economic volatility of the last 6 years, in particular the rapid expansion and contraction of the knowledge sectors. Our hypothesis is that these sectors amplify the business cycle due to their increasing returns to scale, growing faster than others in an upswing and contracting faster in a downswing. To test this hypothesis we postulate a general equilibrium model with two sectors: one with increasing returns that are external to the firm and endogenously determined - the knowledge sector - and the other with constant returns to scale. We introduce a new measure of volatility of output, a real beta, and derive a resolving equation, from which we prove that the increasing return sectors exhibit more volatility then other sectors. We validate the main results on US macro economic data of real GDP by industry (2-3 digits SIC codes) of the 1977-2001 period, and provide policy conclusions.Received: 18 March 2002, Revised: 16 February 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D5, D58, E10, L50, L52, O38, O51.Correspondence to: Graciela Chichilnisky     

Authority and Incentives in Organizations

I consider a corporation that consists of an owner, a manager, and two divisions. There exist externalities between the divisions: if a division behaves cooperatively, its success will increase the performance of the other division. The owner creates monetary effort incentives and allocates decision authority over the divisions. I characterize how externalities and benefits of control determine the corporation's optimal organization. The introduction of endogenous incentives changes the major findings of the existing literature, because then concentrated delegation of authority over both divisions to one of the division heads will be optimal if cooperation is important and divisions are difficult to incentivize.     

Fair division with no information

Summary. We consider a situation in which a central authority must allocate non-tradeable and non-marketable goods between a group of individuals in a fair way. There are exogenous divisibility constraints imposed on the goods to be allocated. The authority has absolutely no information on the preferences of the recipients; moreover, no interaction is allowed among recipients or between the authority and the recipients. Envy-freeness is the equity criterion adopted. Using a remarkable property of simplices (which we introduce and prove) we argue that assigning bundles of equal expected value (forming what is called in this paper the class of balanced allocations) is hardly fair unless extra effort is made to discriminate between these proposed allocations.Received: 7 April 2003, Revised: 9 October 2003JEL Classification Numbers: C65, D63, D89. Correspondence to: J. LerouxThe authors wish to thank Marc Fleurbaey, Alan Kirman, Serge-Christophe Kolm, Hervé Moulin and the late Louis-André Gérard-Varet for stimulating discussions, as well as an anonymous referee for comments on an earlier draft.     

Delegation and commitment in durable goods monopolies

This paper studies a simultaneous-move infinite-horizon delegation game in which the principal of a durable goods monopoly entrusts pricing decisions to a manager who enjoys consuming her monetary rewards but dislikes production effort. The delegation contract allows for continual interference with managerial incentives: in each period the principal rewards the manager according to her performance. We show that when the cost of delegation is low relative to profits, the principal can attain the precommitment price plan in a perfect rational expectations equilibrium. The paper analyzes the robustness of this result under alternative specifications of timing and objectives. We also provide a numerical characterization of the equilibrium strategies for the case of linear-quadratic payoffs.     

Delegation to a possibly ignorant agent

In a delegation problem, an uninformed principal delegates decision‐making powers to a biased and possibly ignorant agent. The principal cannot use monetary payments but can restrict the set of the agent's choices. I show that in the general case, the principal may offer a disconnected set of choices. In a setting with arbitrary bias the uncertainty principle holds—the principal benefits as the likelihood that the agent is informed increases. When the bias is constant, I show that the ally principle holds—the principal benefits as the bias becomes smaller. Finally, when the likelihood of the agent being informed is determined by the agent's effort, then for small biases the principal benefits from limiting the agent's choice. When the agent is sufficiently biased, the principal gives more choice to the agent, so as to to improve incentives for information acquisition.     

A public contracting evolutionary game with corruption

In this paper, firms are randomly matched from a continuous population to play a public contracting game (say, building a bridge). Price is given, so firms compete in quality; the higher the quality offer, the less the profit. According to the official rules of the contest, the firm bidding the highest quality wins; however, we consider the possibility that firms attempt to corrupt the public officer in charge in order to be sure to win even if bidding a lower quality (quality bids are not publicly observable). Whether or not firms attempt to corrupt depends on how rewarding corruption is w. r. t. being honest. Within a dynamic evolutionary framewark, we investigate how social conventions with or without corruption are established under various assumptions concerning the corruptability of the public officer and the possibility of an external monitoring of the officer's decisions by a super partes authority.     

Delegation versus Veto in Organizational Games of Strategic Communication

In organizations, principals use decision rules to govern a more informed agent's behavior. We compare two such rules: delegation and veto. Recent work suggests that delegation dominates veto unless the divergence in preferences between the principal and the agent is so large that informative communication cannot take place. We show that this result does not hold in a reasonable model of veto versus delegation. In this model, veto dominates delegation for any feasible divergence in preferences, if it induces the agent to shut down low quality proposals that he would otherwise implement and if such projects have sufficient likelihood.     

Credible delegation

We show that the vertical delegation of decision-making authority to agent firms can act as a credible strategic commitment even when contracts are unobservable (or renegotiable) if and only if multilateral delegation is combined with decentralized ownership of the agent firms. In this case, the possibility of renegotiation of other agents’ contracts constrains the set of contracts acceptable to each agent. Delegation may induce more or less aggressive behavior, depending on the nature of within-structure competition among the agent firms. Thus, delegation may be a valuable, credible strategic commitment mechanism when strategies are either substitutes or complements.