Collaborative Research: The Economics of Expertise

决策者所面临的各种各样的问题几乎排除了他们拥有在所有领域作出明智判断所需的专门知识的可能性。因此，决策的权力往往与相关的专业知识脱节。决策者和专家之间的“劳动分工”是本研究的重点。具体来说，它的目标是分析单个决策者与他可能选择向其寻求建议的一些专家之间的战略相互作用。利用信息经济学和博弈论的工具，该项目将对一个足够广泛的模型进行理论分析，以与各种制度设置保持一致。特别值得关注的情况是，决策者能够咨询多个专家，因此，他是多个，有时是相互矛盾的建议的接受者。此外，这些建议并不是由完全不感兴趣的各方提出的：专家们的利益，即使与决策者的利益不相冲突，也可能不一致。后者的任务是有效地汇总在这种环境中接收到的信息。会议将讨论三大类问题。第一个问题涉及专业知识和忠诚之间的权衡，后者决定了专家的利益与决策者的利益有多接近。讨论的一些问题是：决策者应该如何整合同样精通但忠诚度不同的专家的意见？有没有可能让专家们通过相互挑拨来披露更多的信息呢？“劣等”专家的建议一定要被忽略吗？应该咨询多少专家？第二个问题涉及赔偿和授权这两个问题。专家的建议应该如何得到补偿？最优的薪酬方案能导致全面披露吗？什么时候决策者应该把决策权委托给专家？该项目的第三部分将探讨上述研究的一些更广泛的含义，以从不完全知情的代理中获取信息的一般问题。事实上，决策者不能可靠地承诺一个行动过程，一个机制，将这个问题与传统的机制设计理论中考虑的问题区别开来。特别是，与传统理论的教训相反，实现充分披露和最佳结果是困难的。

The diverse range of problems faced by decision makers almost precludes the possibility of their possessing the expertise needed to make informed judgements in all areas. As a result, the power to make decisions is often divorced from the relevant specialized knowledge. It is the `division of labor` between decision makers and experts that is the focus of this research. Specifically, its goal is to analyze the strategic interplay between a single decision maker and a number of experts from whom he might choose to seek advice. Employing tools from the economics of information and game theory, the project will undertake a theoretical analysis of a model broad enough to be consistent with a variety of institutional settings. Of particular concern are situations in which the decision maker is able to consult multiple experts and, thus, is the recipient of multiple, sometimes conflicting, pieces of advice. Moreover, this advice is not given by completely disinterested parties: the experts may have interests which, even if not at odds with, are not coincident with those of the decision maker. The latter's task is then to aggregate the information received in such an environment effectively. Three broad sets of issues will be addressed. The first concerns the tradeoff between expertise and loyalty, the latter determining how closely an expert's interests are aligned with those of the decision maker. Some questions addressed are: How should a decision maker integrate the opinions of experts who are equally proficient but have differing loyalties? Is it possible to get the experts to disclose more information by playing one off against the other? Should the advice of `inferior` experts necessarily be ignored? How many experts should be consulted? The second relates to the twin issues of compensation and delegation. How should experts be compensated for their advice? Can optimal compensation schemes lead to full disclosure? When should a decision maker delegate the authority to make decisions to an expert? The third part of the project will explore some wider implications of the research summarized above to the general question of information elicitation from imperfectly informed agents. The fact that the decision maker cannot credibly commit to a course of action, a mechanism, distinguishes this problem from that traditionally considered in mechanism design theory. In particular, contrary to the lessons of the traditional theory, achieving full-disclosure and first-best outcomes is difficult.