Designing countries that work for everyone: Incentive Contracts under Moral Hazard, the Evolution of ICT and Income inequalities

去年英国公投和美国总统大选结果的许多评论人士都指出，两国选民对本国经济体系近期的演变深感不满。这些情绪反映在特蕾莎·梅作为首相的第一次演讲中，她承诺“让英国成为一个为所有人服务的国家”，而不仅仅是“少数特权阶层”。同样，特朗普总统在就职演说中承诺，“我们国家被遗忘的男人和女人将不再被遗忘。根据经合组织的数据，过去几十年来，36个经合组织国家的基尼系数平均值从20世纪80年代的0.290上升到2014年的0.318。经济学文献已经为收入分配的近期趋势找到了一些解释，例如偏重技能的技术变革和全球化。本研究的目的是建立一个理论框架，在经济中的这些外生变化和收入不平等的普遍现象之间提供一个通道，并得出一个最佳的制度设置，包括失业救济，税收再分配制度和劳动力的谈判能力。为了实现这一目标，第一阶段的研究建立了一个微观基础的模型，这是由一个代表性的企业和工人之间的劳动合同问题的特点与道德风险的环境下，在激励合同。模型中的一个重要假设是，工人的偏好具有一些行为经济学研究结果。该模型的均衡被认为是一个组织的最优结构，给定一定的制度设置。在这一阶段，我会就一些相关的参数，比如技术水平，进行一些比较静态的分析。第二阶段的研究将嵌入上述模型的福利最大化问题的慈善监管机构，以获得福利最大化水平的机构设置。使用MATHEMATICA，我将采用一种数值方法，在该方法中，最初选择模型的参数，以便模型的某些特征与现实世界相似。这里的目标是获得最佳的制度反应的基本参数的变化。此外，为了理解防御的含义，我打算讨论不调整制度安排的后果。最后阶段的研究目标是将上述制度设计问题置于国际环境中。首先，我将推导出当决策者最大化其国家福利时，在制度和法律的框架设计中的国家间纳什均衡。按照文献中的标准，我假设资本是完全移动的。关于劳工，我打算从流动性的角度区分熟练劳工和非熟练劳工。这是基于这样的假设，即熟练劳动力的交易成本低于非熟练劳动力的交易成本。在这一阶段，我还打算分析的情况下，非福利最大化的决策者（例如，由于监管捕获），并检查是否国际竞争的制度设计可以作为一个纪律处分的设备。

Many commentators of last year's referendum in the UK and the outcome of the US presidential election have pointed to the deep dissatisfaction of voters in both countries with the recent evolution of their economic system. These sentiments are reflected by Theresa May's first speech as Prime Minister where she promised to ``make Britain a country that works for everyone'' and not just for the ``privileged few''. Similarly, President Trump pledged in his inaugural speech that ``the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.'' According to the OECD data, the past couple of decades have seen an increase in average of Gini coefficient in the 36 OECD countries from 0.290 in the 1980s to 0.318 in 2014 or latest. Economic literatures have identified some explanations for the recent trend in income distribution, such as a skill-biased technological change and globalisation. The aim of my research is to build a theoretical framework to provide a channel between these exogenous changes in the economy and the prevailing phenomena of income inequality and derive an optimal institutional setup including unemployment benefits, tax redistribution system and the bargaining power of labour. To achieve this, the first phase of the research builds a microfoundation of the model, which is represented by a labour contracting problem between a representative firm and worker under an environment characterised with moral hazard, resulting in an incentive contract. An important assumption to be made in the model is that a worker's preference features some behavioural economic findings. The equilibrium of the model is taken as an optimal structure of an organisation given a certain institutional setup. In this stage, I will conduct some comparative static analysis with respect to some of the relevant parameters, such as technological level. The second phase of the research will embed the above model in a welfare maximization problem of a benevolent regulator to derive the welfare maximising level of institutional setup. Using MATHEMATICA, I will employ a numerical approach where the parameters of the model are initially chosen so that some of the characteristics of the model resemble the real-world. The objective here is to derive the optimal institutional response to changes in the underlying parameters. Moreover, to understand the implication of entrenchment, I intend to discuss the consequences of not adjusting the institutional arrangement. The objective of final phase of the research is to insert the above institutional design problem in an international environment. Firstly, I will derive the Nash equilibrium across countries in the design of an institutional and legal framework when the decision maker maximises the welfare of their country. As is standard in the literature, I will assume that the capital is perfectly mobile. With respect to labour, I intend to distinguish between skilled and unskilled labour in terms of mobility. This is based on the assumption that the transaction costs for skilled labour is smaller than that of unskilled labour. In this stage, I also intend to analyse the case of a non-welfare maximising decision maker (for instance due to a regulatory capture) and examine whether an international competition for design of institutional system can function as a disciplining device.