Topics in the Theory of Optimal Cooperation in Dynamic Games

该项目有助于我们理解重复博弈的经济应用。它建立在研究人员开发的表征重复博弈的重要新技术的基础上，并扩展了调查者关于不完全信息下重复博弈所获得的令人惊讶和潜在重要的结果。调查员过往研究的高质量和重要意义表明，他有能力成功完成这一项目。该项目由两部分组成。第一部分发展了一种巧妙的隐性和显性契约理论。该理论基于一个模型，在该模型中，委托人与代理人谈判合同，使后者的薪酬取决于产出(或其他一些公共可观察到的变量)，而不是代理人的某些选择变量(可能是代理人的努力程度或谨慎程度)。当当局(法院)只考虑产出而不考虑选择变量，但委托人可以观察到选择变量，并可以对背离隐性协议的代理人进行报复时，重复博弈中就会出现隐性的跨期接触。隐性合同和显性合同被证明是共存的，但如果行为是有效的，委托人总是会支付给代理人比显式合同中要求的金额更多的钱。这是一项原创性研究，因为这个问题从未被严格分析过。这一结果有望为合同提供新的见解(为什么合同中包括非约束性条款？)以及商业周期与隐性劳动合同之间的关系。第二部分是市场与可再生资源隐性合谋的战略动态，即所谓的“大鱼大战”问题。研究人员展示了如何将以前的工作概括为这个复杂而重要的问题的解决方案。

The project contributes to our understanding of economic applications of repeated games. It builds on important new techniques for characterizing repeated games developed by the investigator and it extends surprising and potentially significant results obtained by the investigator about repeated games under imperfect information. The high quality and significance of the investigator's past research show that he has the ability to successfully complete this project. The project consists of two parts. The first part develops an ingenious theory of implicit and explicit contracts. The theory is based on a model in which a principal negotiates a contract with an agent, making the latter's compensation contingent upon output (or some other publicly observable variable) but not upon some choice variable of the agent (perhaps the level of effort or care taken by the agent). Implicit inter-temporal contacts emerge in repeated games when the authorities (the courts) take into account only the output and not the choice variables but the principal can observe the choice variables and can retaliate against an agent who deviates from the implicit agreement. Implicit and explicit contracts are shown to coexist, but the principal will always pay the agent more than the amount called for in the explicit contract, if behavior is efficient. This is original research because this problem has never been rigorously analyzed. The results promise new insights into contracts (Why are non-binding clauses included in contracts?) and the relationship between business cycles and implicit labor contracts. The second part concerns the strategic dynamics of implicit collusion in markets with renewable resource, the so-called "Great Fish War" problem. The investigator shows how previous work can be generalized into a solution for this complicated and important problem.