Simple menus of contracts in cost-based procurement and regulation
Simple menus of contracts in cost-based procurement and regulation
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DOI：
10.1257/000282803322157160
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发表时间：
2003-05
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
W. Rogerson
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文献类型：
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作者：
W. Rogerson
Jean-Jacques Laffont和Jean Tirole（1986）在一篇有影响力的论文中提出了一个基于成本的采购和监管的委托代理模型，并表明委托人可以通过向代理人提供由连续线性合同组成的菜单来实施最佳机制。在实践中应用这一理论的两个相关问题是，计算最优菜单所涉及的经济逻辑和基本数学相当复杂，并且委托人必须能够指定代理人的整个努力函数的负效用，以便计算最优菜单。因此，该模型在实践中没有被广泛用于计算实际的激励合同，甚至没有被用于制定关于最优解决方案的性质及其如何受各种经济因素影响的有用的定性指导。本文的目的是表明，显着简单的菜单，易于理解和计算，并具有较低的信息要求，可以，至少在某些情况下，捕获的充分优化的复杂菜单所实现的收益的相当大的份额。特别是，本文考虑了两个项目的菜单，其中一个项目是一个成本补偿合同，另一个项目是一个固定价格的合同。这种菜单称为固定价格成本报销（FPCR）菜单。对于代理的效用是二次和代理的类型是均匀分布的情况下，它示出的最佳FPCR菜单总是捕获至少四分之三的增益，最佳复杂的菜单实现（其中增益是相对于使用成本补偿合同的结果来测量的）。本文的研究最初是出于国防采购中的政策问题。在美国，国防部（DOD）几乎从独家承包商那里购买所有主要武器系统，使用的合同方法基本上相当于使用成本补偿合同。理解国防部为何使用成本补偿合同方法的最佳方法是，它们精确地执行拉丰和梯若尔委托代理模型中确定的功能;它们保证，在相当于双边垄断的情况下，国防部和公司可以达成协议（即，他们保证代理商将始终生产该商品。当然采用费用报销承包方式
In an influential paper, Jean-Jacques Laffont and Jean Tirole (1986) formulated a principal– agent model of cost-based procurement and regulation and showed that the principal can implement the optimal mechanism by offering the agent a menu consisting of a continuum of linear contracts. Two related problems with applying this theory in practice have been that the economic logic and the underlying mathematics involved in calculating the optimal menu are quite complex, and the principal must be able to specify the agent’s entire disutility of effort function in order to calculate the optimal menu. As a result, the model has not been widely used in practice to either calculate actual incentive contracts or even to develop useful qualitative guidance about the nature of the optimal solution and how it is affected by various economic factors. The purpose of this paper is to show that dramatically simpler menus which are easy to understand and calculate and which have lower informational requirements, can, at least in some cases, capture a substantial share of the gains achievable by the fully optimal complex menu. In particular, this paper considers two-item menus where one item is a cost-reimbursement contract and the other item is a fixed-price contract. Such menus are called Fixed Price Cost Reimbursement (FPCR) menus. For the case where the agent’s utility is quadratic and the agent’s type is distributed uniformly, it is shown that the optimal FPCR menu always captures at least three-quarters of the gain that the optimal complex menu achieves (where the gain is measured relative to the result of using a cost-reimbursement contract). This paper’s research was originally motivated by a policy issue in defense procurement. In the United States, the Department of Defense (DOD) purchases almost all major weapons systems from sole-source contractors using contracting methods that essentially amount to using cost-reimbursement contracts. The best way to understand why DOD uses costreimbursement contracting methods is that they perform precisely the function identified in Laffont and Tirole’s principal–agent model; they guarantee, in a situation that amounts to a bilateral monopoly, that DOD and the firm can reach an agreement (i.e., they guarantee that the agent will always produce the good.) Of course the use of cost-reimbursement contracting methods