SBE-RCUK Lead Agency: Sequential Bargaining with Externalities

概述：该提案研究了在具有交易摩擦的环境中对公共产品和联合项目的连续贡献。拟议的研究有三个组成部分。第一个组成部分侧重于委托人的存在，作为完成单一公益或集体协议的协调来源。这一部分的激励性例子包括破产重组、游说/收买选票、网络外部性的技术采用和公司收购。研究者考虑了加强代理人相对于委托人的正式谈判力对结果和福利的影响。第二部分研究了在一个完全分散的环境中（没有主体）对竞争性公共产品的连续贡献。突出的应用包括对替代组织的捐赠，以及灵活环境中的集体努力，如开源编程。研究人员在此背景下研究了效率、延迟以及任务和团队合作的最佳组织。第三部分重新介绍了多个联合项目环境中的原则。这一部分的激励性例子是一个国会党领导人领导党的议程上的各种问题，一所大学的发展办公室寻求捐款，并与大捐助者的捐款。研究人员研究校长如何积极管理所产生的跨期的外部性multipleprojects.Intellectual优点：这一建议是有关的文献合同与外部性，延迟在谈判模型与完整的信息，和私人贡献的公共产品。它通过研究对多个项目的贡献以及校长在有摩擦的动态环境中的作用来补充这些工作。要做到这一点，PI开发了一个家庭的密切相关的模型，多边谈判的存在ofexternalities，其中的任务和合同是不是由所有代理人同时进行。关注顺序谈判突出了以前未探索的免费搭车的激励及其对延迟和效率的影响，而多个联合项目的存在产生了新的激励跨项目协调。在这个建议中的一个关键步骤是获得一个通用的易于处理的模型，以揭示在不同的设置中对多个公共产品的连续贡献背后的共同力量。所提出的模型是灵活的，开发的技术可以用于未来的研究人员关心组织，慈善机构等的激励措施。更广泛的影响：这项研究包括各种应用，从筹款和捐赠，以团队生产和立法讨价还价。这项建议的结果将有助于更好地在政府和私营部门组织这些活动。例如，在筹资方面，该提案将提供指导，说明在有多个小捐助者的情况下如何最佳地捆绑不同的公共事业，以及如何在有大捐助者的情况下组织筹资。在团队努力方面，它将阐明如何组织多个活跃项目的团队合作。研究结果也将适用于现代研发公司和开源软件社区的最佳组织。例如，第三个组成部分与破产重组监管机构的设计特别相关。该项目将由英国和美国的两名研究人员执行。由于该提案涉及两个不同大陆的两所不同大学，因此将受益于两个不同的机构传播工作，以达到非学术受众和普通公众。学生也将参与讨论相关文献，探索简化模型在替代假设下的结果，并帮助进行数值计算。

Overview:This proposal studies sequential contributions to public goods and joint projects in environments withtransactional frictions. The proposed research has three components. The first component focuses on thepresence of a principal as a source of coordination for the completion of a single public good or collectiveagreement. Motivating examples for this component include bankruptcy restructuring, lobbying/votebuying, technology adoption with network externalities, and corporate takeovers. The researchersconsider the effect on outcomes and welfare of strengthening agents' formal bargaining power relative tothe principal. The second component studies sequential contributions to competing public goods in a fullydecentralized environment (without a principal). Prominent applications include donations to alternativeorganizations, and collective effort in flexible environments, as in open source programming. Theresearchers study efficiency, delay, and the optimal organization of tasks and teamwork in this context.The third component reintroduces principals in the multiple joint projects environment. Motivatingexamples for this component are a congressional party leader leading the party's agenda over diverseissues, a university's development office seeking contributions, and donations with large donors. Theresearchers study how principals actively manage the intertemporal externalities generated by multipleprojects.Intellectual Merit:This proposal is related to the literature on contracting with externalities, delay in bargaining models withcomplete information, and private contributions to public goods. It complements these works by studyingcontributions to multiple projects and the role of principals in dynamic environments with frictions. To dothis, the PIs develop a family of closely related models of multilateral bargaining in the presence ofexternalities, where tasks and contracting are not undertaken by all agents simultaneously. Focusing onsequential bargaining highlights previously unexplored incentives for free riding and their implicationsfor delay and efficiency, while the existence of multiple joint projects generates new incentives forcoordination across projects. A key step in this proposal is to obtain a general tractable model to uncovercommon forces behind sequential contributions to multiple public goods in different setups. The proposedmodel is flexible, and the techniques developed can be used by future researchers concerned withincentives in organizations, charities, etc.Broader Impacts:This research encompasses a variety of applications, ranging from fundraising and donations, to teamproduction and legislative bargaining. The results from this proposal will help to better organize theseactivities in both government and the private sector. In terms of fundraising, for example, this proposalwill provide guidance about how to optimally bundle different public causes when there are multiplesmall donors and how to organize fundraising in the presence of large donors. In terms of effort in teams,it will shed light on how to organize team cooperation with multiple active projects. Results will also beapplicable to optimal organization for modern R&D companies, and open source software communities.The third component, for example, is particular relevant for the design of the institutions regulatingbankruptcy reorganizations. The project will be carried out by two researchers based in the UK and US.Since this proposal involves two different universities in two different continents, it will benefit from twodifferent institutional dissemination efforts in order to reach non-academic audiences and the generalpublic. Students will also be involved to discuss related literature, explore results of simplified modelsunder alternative assumptions, and aid in numerical computations.