Information and Timing in the Theory of Repeated Moral Hazard

在许多经济环境中，显性和隐性契约安排的效率受到不完善监督的限制：一些代理人不能完美地观察其他人的行为。通常，利益的经济问题涉及某些战略情况的无限重复，例如寡头垄断、合伙关系或任何组织等级制度。在这类问题上的合作取决于参与者对并非所有参与者都遵守隐含协议的迹象作出积极反应。这样看来，当与玩家行为相关的信号被及时观察到，当玩家能够迅速对新信息做出反应时，合作的可能性就会增强。根据他们先前的授权，调查人员证明情况正好相反。玩家观察信号的延迟和较慢的反应速度会增强合作。延迟和较慢的反应速度使得使用单一惩罚来阻止大量不同的潜在偏离隐性协议成为可能。这被称为“可重复使用的惩罚”。利用可重用性极大地提高了组织效率。在他们之前的研究中，研究者使用了标准的带有折扣的重复游戏。这些游戏假设玩家采取行动的频率是固定的，玩家接收有关游戏玩法的信息的频率也是固定的。这项资助的贡献来自于放宽这些假设，研究其他问题中的信息流，并将结果推广到组织设计的新理论中。本文考虑的新主题包括竞争市场中的隐性契约理论、超级博弈中的再谈判、战略复杂性、重复代理中的部分道德风险以及可再生资源市场中合谋的战略动态。

In many economic settings the efficiency of explicit and implicit contractual arrangements is limited by the presence of imperfect monitoring: some agents cannot observe perfectly the actions of others. Often the economic problem of interest involves the indefinite repetition of some strategic situation such as an oligopoly, a partnership, or any organizational hierarchy. Cooperation in such problems depends upon the participants responding aggressively to indications that not all participants are honoring the implicit agreement. It would seem then that the possibilities for cooperation are enhanced when signals related to players' behavior are observed without delay, and when players can respond quickly to new information. Under their previous grant the investigators demonstrated that the opposite is true. Cooperation is enhanced by delays in the observation of signals and slower reaction speeds for players. The delays and slower reaction speeds made it possible to use a single punishment to deter a multitude of different potential deviations from the implicit agreement. This is described as "reusable punishments." Exploiting reusability enhances organizational efficiency dramatically. In their previous work the investigators used standard repeated games with discounting. These games assume a fixed frequency with which players take actions and fixed frequency with which players receive information regarding the play of the game. The contribution of this grant comes from relaxing these assumptions, studying information flow in other problems, and generalizing the results into a new theory of organizational design. The new topics considered include implicit contract theory in competitive markets, renegotiation in supergames, strategic complexity, partial moral hazard in repeated agency, and the strategic dynamics of collusion in markets with renewable resources.