Buried in Paperwork: Excessive Reporting in Organizations

This paper offers an explanation why a principal may demand too much paperwork from a subordinate: Due to limited liability and moral hazard a principal is unable to appropriate all rents. Internal paperwork allows a more accurate monitoring of the agent and enables the principal to appropriate a larger part of the agent's rent. In her decision the principal disregards the agent's cost increase of more internal paperwork. Consequently, the requested amount of internal paperwork may be too high from both the agent's personal point of view and the organization as a whole

Deterministic versus Stochastic Mechanisms in Principal–Agent Models

This paper shows that, contrary to what is generally believed, decreasing concavity of the agent’s utility function with respect to the screening variable is not sufficient to ensure that stochastic mechanisms are suboptimal. The paper demonstrates, however, that they are suboptimal whenever the optimal deterministic mechanism exhibits no bunching. This is the case for most applications of the theory and therefore validates the literature’s usual focus on deterministic mechanisms

Mediated Contracts and Mechanism Design

This note relates the mechanisms that are based on mediated contracts of Rahman and Obara (2010) to the mechanisms of Myerson (1982). It shows that the mechanisms in Myerson (1982) are more general in that they encompass the mechanisms based on mediated contracts. It establishes an equivalence between the two classes if mediated contracts are allowed to be stochastic

Entrepreneurial Financing, Advice, and Agency Costs

This paper studies the interplay between advice and agency costs in entrepreneurial financing. We show that advise may exacerbate agency problems, because the agent may use it at the investor's expense and thereby hurt investors. Depending on the magnitude of the agency problem, optimal financing relationship may induce full, partial, or no advice. Because the trade--off between the positive and negative effect of entrepreneurial advice is delicate, investors need to control the information flow carefully. This explains the dual role of financing and consulting by investors in entrepreneurial financing.optimal advice, agency costs, informed investors, entrepreneurial financing

Separating Equilibria with Imperfect Certification

Viscusi (1978) shows how, in markets with quality uncertainty, perfect certification results in separation from top down due to an unraveling process similar to Akerlof (1970). De and Nabar (1991) argue that imperfect certification prevents unraveling so that equilibria with full separation do not exist. This note shows that, if one considers the buyers' buying decision explicitly, a separating equilibrium with imperfect certification does exist.certification; unraveling; separating equilibrium

Optimal Information Revelation by Informed Investors

This paper studies the structure of optimal finance contracts in an agency model of outside finance, when investors possess private information. We show that, depending on the intensity of the entrepreneur’s moral hazard problem, optimal contracts induce full, partial, or no revelation of the investor’s private information. A partial or nonrevelation of information is optimal, when it mitigates an undersupply of effort by the entrepreneur due to moral hazard.informed investors; optimal finance contracts; partial information revelation

Regulation in a Political Economy: An explanation of limited commitment of governments in the context of the ratchet effect

This paper offers an explanation why governments have limited commitment and are susceptible to the ratchet effect. It analyzes a two period model in which a government with full commitment regulates a firm. Each period is predated by an election. If contracts of previous governments tie newly elected governments, governments end up being unable to resist renegotiation. If previous contracts do not bind new governments and taxation has a crowding-out effect, a ratchet effect occurs which is similar, but not identical to the standard ratchet effect which is due to intertemporal non-commitment. Surprisingly, social welfare may be higher in the latter case.political economy;endogenous limited commitment;renegotiation;short run contracts

Regulating Availability with Demand Uncertainty

I evaluate German regulation that requires retail discounters to guarantee the availability of their products in bargain sales. The regulation is meant to prevent loss leaders. Retailers however claim that rationing is due to demand uncertainty and thereby undermine the regulation's rationale. Indeed, demand uncertainty explains empirical observations better than a theory of loss leaders. This paper shows, however, that also under demand uncertainty the regulation has positive effects. Ultimately, it raises production, which, under imperfect competition, is beneficial. A strict regulation overshoots its goal when high demand is relatively unlikely. In this case more sophisticated regulation is required.

Buried in Paperwork: Excessive Reporting in Organizations

This paper offers an explanation why a principal may demand too much paperwork from a subordinate: Due to limited liability and moral hazard a principal is unable to appropriate all rents. Internal paperwork allows a more accurate monitoring of the agent and enables the principal to appropriate a larger part of the agent's rent. In her decision the principal disregards the agent's cost increase of more internal paperwork. Consequently, the requested amount of internal paperwork may be too high from both the agent's personal point of view and the organization as a whole.

Moral Hazard in Sequential Teams

This paper considers a team in which production takes place sequentially and in which agents observe the actions taken by previous agents. We show that for such teams sharing rules exist which are balanced and induce efficient production as the unique equilibrium outcome. This in contrast to team structures studied by Holmstr�m (1982) in which agents act simultaneously. The sharing rule which induces efficient production is simple, intuitive and robust to noise, sabotage, and collusive behavior. It induces efficient production even when agents obtain imperfect information about previous actions.Partnerships, Teams, unique implementation.