Complexity Contract and Compensation

复杂性合约和补偿

• 批准号: 9709333
• 负责人: W. Bentley MacLeod
• 金额: $ 22.8万
• 依托单位: University of Southern California
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1997
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1997-08-01 至 2001-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9709333&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Complexity; Contract; Compensation

Project Abstract The role of classical contract law is to permit individuals to enter freely into obligations that can be enforced by the courts if necessary. Much of modern intervention by courts into the realm of private contract is based upon the fact that individuals do not always understand the implications of their contractual obligations at the time of signing a contract. In other cases unforeseen events, such as a contractor becoming ill or a worker having an accident, may not have been anticipated at the time the contract was signed. While it is widely recognized that bounded rationality on the part of individuals may lead to mistakes in contract formation, we currently do not have a good understanding of the appropriate way to model bounded rationality that can be used to study the issue of contract formation. This project consists of four parts. First a model of bounded rationality is developed that can be used to better understand errors human decision making, particularly during contract formation. Secondly this model is applied to the problem of contract formation in the employment relationship. It is shown how current employment institutions, such as employment at will, are efficient responses to the problem of contract formation between boundedly rational individuals. This work provides insight into the formation of labor law. The third part of the project extends these ideas to the problem of firm ownership. Using insights from recent work in cognitive psychology, this work formalizes the notion of ``judgment'' on the part of an entrepreneur. It is shown that it is efficient to allocate ownership rights (rather than have joint ownership) to those individuals that have superior abilities in judging worker quality. The fourth part of the project explores the dynamic implications of bounded rationality. In particular, the project will study the ability for firms to adjust their contractual obligations in the face of new information and technical change. An important issue is to better understand why organizations often fail, rather than take advantage of new and superior technologies. In addition to the construction of theoretical models, the implications of the models are tested empirically.

经典合同法的作用是允许个人自由地承担必要时法院可以强制执行的义务。现代法院对私人契约领域的干预大多是基于这样一个事实，即个人在签订合同时并不总是理解其合同义务的含义。在其他情况下，不可预见的事件，如承包商生病或工人发生事故，在签订合同时可能没有预料到。虽然人们普遍认为，个人的有限理性可能导致契约形成中的错误，但我们目前还没有很好地理解如何适当地对有限理性进行建模，从而可以用于研究契约形成问题。本项目由四个部分组成。首先，开发了一个有限理性模型，可以用来更好地理解人类决策的错误，特别是在合同形成过程中。其次，将该模型应用于劳动关系中的契约形成问题。它显示了当前的雇佣制度，如随意雇佣，是对有限理性个体之间契约形成问题的有效回应。这项工作提供了对劳动法形成的洞察。项目的第三部分将这些观点扩展到企业所有权问题。利用最近认知心理学研究的见解，这项工作正式定义了企业家的“判断”概念。研究表明，将所有权（而不是共同所有权）分配给那些在判断工人素质方面有较强能力的个人是有效的。该项目的第四部分探讨了有限理性的动态含义。该项目将特别研究公司在面对新的信息和技术变化时调整其合同义务的能力。一个重要的问题是更好地理解为什么组织经常失败，而不是利用新的和先进的技术。除了构建理论模型外，还对模型的含义进行了实证检验。