Collaborative Research: Monotone Methods in Dynamic Screening Contracts

协作研究：动态筛选合约中的单调方法

• 批准号: 1132193
• 负责人: Vijay Krishna
• 金额: $ 16.37万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-08-15 至 2013-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1132193&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Monotone; Methods; Dynamic

The research focus of this project is the provision of incentives in the face of severe contemporaneous liquidity constraints. Hence, one way of framing this project is as endeavoring to answer a natural economic question: ?what is the best way for the owner of a firm (the principal) to incentivize an employee operator (the agent) who has no wealth of his own?? The posited answer is that the principal should use ?sweat equity contracts? that reward the agent for good outcomes (i.e., low cost realizations) by increasing his ownership stake in the firm and punish him for bad outcomes (i.e., high cost realizations) by reducing it. As such, the findings will have implications in numerous financial and contractual settings including: franchising, venture capital, and investment banking.Moreover, the methods at the heart of this project should give rise to robust empirical implications in such settings. For instance, work-to-own franchise contracts should specify the path by which an employee operator either becomes a vested owner of a franchise or is fired and replace. Similarly, in the context of venture capital covenants, output growth should be associated with the transfer of control rights from venture capitalists to the founding entrepreneurs.In addition, the methods developed under the auspices of this project will have spillovers in many applications of dynamic mechanism design. For example, in a setting of multi-firm procurement, the theory developed under this project may help to explain the endogenous emergence of long-term supply relationships. Whereas, in the context of repeated sales to cash constrained customers, the theory may shed light on such contractual arrangements as frequent-purchase discount plans. Finally, in a setting of private wealth shocks, the methodology may advance understanding of optimal mutual insurance mechanisms.Technically, the purpose of this project is to investigate the structure and implementation of optimal dynamic screening contracts. Specifically, the model proposed for study is an infinite-horizon version of the canonical static monopolistic screening setting in which the agent is privately informed about the stream of costs or revenues and is severely liquidity constrained. The resulting dynamic mechanism-design problem facing the principal will be formulated as a recursive dynamic program in which the relevant state variable is promised future rents paid to the agent. It will be shown that under certain assumptions all contractual terms (output, contemporaneous rents, and future rents) are weakly increasing in the state variable, affording a unique interpretation of the state as the agent's equity in the firm. Higher levels of sweat equity are associated with lower output distortions and less stringent liquidity constraints. Moreover, monotonicity in type permits characterization of short-run dynamic adjustments in the contractual environment -- high cost realizations result in lower sweat equity and more distortions while low realizations have the reverse effects. Following the optimal dynamic insurance literature, it may also be possible to establish long-run contractual dynamics under which the agent ultimately either achieves a vested ownership stake in the firm or is fired and replaced.

本项目的研究重点是在面临严重的同期流动性约束时提供激励。 因此，构建这个项目的一种方式是努力回答一个自然的经济问题：公司的拥有者（委托人）激励自己没有财富的雇员经营者（代理人）的最佳方法是什么？ 假设的答案是，校长应该使用？汗水股权合同？奖励代理获得好的结果（即，低成本实现）通过增加他在公司的所有权股份并惩罚他的坏结果（即，因此，研究结果将在许多金融和合同环境中产生影响，包括：特许经营，风险投资和投资银行。此外，该项目的核心方法应该在这些环境中产生强大的经验影响。例如，从工作到拥有的特许经营合同应该规定员工经营者成为特许经营权既得所有者或被解雇和取代的途径。 同样，在风险资本契约的背景下，产出增长应该与控制权从风险资本家转移到创始企业家相关联。此外，在本项目主持下开发的方法将在动态机制设计的许多应用中产生溢出效应。例如，在多公司采购的背景下，本项目下发展的理论可能有助于解释长期供应关系的内生性。 然而，在重复销售的背景下，现金约束的客户，该理论可能会揭示这样的合同安排频繁购买折扣计划。 最后，在私人财富冲击的背景下，该方法可能会促进理解最优相互保险mechanism.Technically，本项目的目的是研究最优动态筛选合同的结构和实施。 具体而言，提出的模型研究是一个无限的地平线版本的典型静态垄断筛选设置，代理人私下了解流的成本或收入，并严重限制流动性。 由此产生的动态机制设计问题所面临的主要将制定为一个递归的动态规划，其中相关的状态变量是承诺未来租金支付给代理。 它将表明，在一定的假设下，所有的合同条款（产量，同期租金，未来租金）是弱增加的状态变量，提供一个独特的解释，国家作为代理人在公司的权益。 较高水平的汗水公平与较低的产出扭曲和较不严格的流动性限制有关。此外，类型的单调性允许描述合同环境中的短期动态调整-高成本实现导致较低的汗水公平和更多的扭曲，而低实现则产生相反的效果。 在最优动态保险文献之后，也可能建立长期的契约动态，在这种动态下，代理人最终要么获得公司的既得所有权，要么被解雇和取代。