Topics in Incomplete Contracts

不完全契约中的主题

• 批准号: 0078851
• 负责人: Oliver Hart
• 金额: $ 17.35万
• 依托单位: National Bureau of Economic Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-08-01 至 2004-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0078851&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Topics; Incomplete; Contracts

Incomplete contract theory is gradually becoming accepted as a useful way to understand the nature of organizations. This project aims to extend work in this area in three ways. First, I wish to understand better the nature of hierarchies. Much of economic activity is structured hierarchically. That is, if a senior person and junior person disagree about what should be done in an organization, the senior person gets his or her way. Why is this? To what extent is it efficient? Given a hierarchical structure, who should be senior? For example, if one person has the job of coordinating activities and somebody else has a more specialist task, is it necessarily the case that the coordinator should be senior to the specialist?Second, I am interested in the foundations of contractual incompleteness. Everyone accepts that the contracts people write are incomplete, but there is less agreement about the reason for this or the implications of contractual incompleteness. One way contracts are "completed" in reality is through the allocation of ownership rights: an owner of an asset can make decisions about the asset which an incomplete contract leaves open, and this fills out the contract. But is ownership an efficient way of completing contracts? Are there any other, more subtle, ways of allocating decision rights in organizations than through ownership?Finally, I intend to study procedures for changing management or obtaining control in publicly traded corporations. In particular, I wish to compare three mechanisms: (1) a proxy fight; (2) a takeover bid; and (3) a combination of (1) and (2). I believe that combining proxy fights and takeovers can overcome some of the inefficiencies that each mechanism exhibits by itself.

不完全契约理论作为理解组织本质的一种有效方法正逐渐被人们所接受。 该项目旨在以三种方式扩大这一领域的工作。 首先，我想更好地理解等级制度的本质。 许多经济活动都是按等级组织的。 也就是说，如果一个高级人员和初级人员不同意在一个组织中应该做什么，高级人员会得到他或她的方式。 为什么会这样呢？ 它在多大程度上是有效的？ 在一个层级结构中，谁应该是最高层？ 例如，如果一个人负责协调活动，而另一个人负责更专业的任务，那么协调员是否必须比专家更资深？第二，我对契约不完全性的基础感兴趣。 每个人都承认人们所写的合同是不完整的，但对于这一点的原因或合同不完整的含义却没有达成一致。 在现实中，契约被“完成”的一种方式是通过所有权的分配：资产的所有者可以对不完整契约留下的资产做出决定，这就完成了契约。 但是，所有权是完成合同的有效方式吗？ 在组织中，除了所有权，还有其他更微妙的方式来分配决策权吗？最后，我打算研究在公开交易的公司中改变管理层或获得控制权的程序。 特别是，我想比较三种机制：（1）代理权之争;（2）收购出价;（3）（1）和（2）的组合。 我相信，将代理权争夺战和收购结合起来，可以克服每种机制本身所表现出的一些低效率。