Economic Analysis of Decision Making and Organization Based on Other-Regarding Preferences

在这项研究中，我试图通过将委托-代理关系的标准道德风险模型与他人（不公平厌恶或寻求地位）偏好理论相结合，获得与许多实验结果一致的新的理论见解。在基准委托代理模型中，委托人和代理人都是风险中性的，而代理人是财富受限的，因此在激励和租金提取之间产生了基本的权衡。我展示了与他人相关的偏好与激励之间以重要的方式相互作用。特别是，通常情况下，委托人的情况更糟因为代理人更关心委托人的福祉。然后，我将分析扩展到多代理设置。当每个代理人都关心另一个代理人的福利时，即使没有技术外部性和相关性，团队合同或相对绩效合同都是最优的。极端的团队契约是“公平的”，并且更有可能是最优的，因为行动可以相互观察到。然而，当经纪人竞争激烈或追求地位时，团队合同从来都不是最优的。我还证明了信息结构也会影响最优契约。我得到的另一个重要结果是，当引入少量与他人相关的偏好时，自利主体的最优契约会发生巨大变化。在该模型的技术假设下，如果代理人是自利的，则存在一个最优的独立契约，其中每个代理人的支付方案仅取决于其项目的结果。然而，当代理人变得与他人无关时，无论变化多么小，独立契约都不再是最优的，最优契约是一般唯一的。

In this research I attempt to obtain new theoretical insights by combining the standard moral hazard models of principal-agent relationships with theories of other-regarding (inequity averse or status-seeking) preferences, that are consistent with many experimental results. In the benchmark principal-agent model, the principal and the agent are both risk neutral, while the agent is wealth constrained, and hence the basic tradeoff between incentives and rent extraction arises. I show that other-regarding preferences interact with incentives in nontrivial ways. In particular, the principal is in general worse off as the agent cares more about the well-being of the principal. I then extend the analysis to a multi-agent setting. When each agent cares about the well-being of the other agent, either a team contract or a relative performance contract is optimal even though there is no technological externality nor correlation. The extreme team contract is "fair" and more likely to be optimal as actions become mutually observable. However, team contracts are never optimal when the agents are competitive or status-seeking. I also show that the information structure also affects the optimal contract. Another important result I obtain is that the optimal contract for self-interest agents changes drastically when a small degree of other-regarding preferences is introduced. Under the technological assumption of the model, if the agents are self-interested, there is an optimal independent contract in which the payment scheme for each agent depends only on the outcome of his project. However, when the agents become other-regarding, however small the changes are, no independent contract is optimal any longer and the optimal contract is generically unique.