Optimal delegated search with adverse selection and moral hazard

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ulbricht, Robert
• 署名单位: Universite de Toulouse; Universite Toulouse 1 Capitole; Toulouse School of Economics
• 刊物名称: THEORETICAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1933-6837
• DOI: 10.3982/TE1801
• 发表日期: 2016-01-01
• 页码: 253-278
• 关键词: Adverse selection; bonus contracts; delegated search; moral hazard; optimal stopping

摘要

This paper studies a model of delegated search. The distribution of search revenues is unknown to the principal and has to be elicited from the agent so as to design the optimal search policy. At the same time, the search process is unobservable, requiring search to be self-enforcing. The two information asymmetries are mutually enforcing: if one is relaxed, delegated search is efficient. With both asymmetries prevailing simultaneously, search is almost surely inefficient (it is stopped too early). Second-best remuneration is shown to optimally utilize a menu of simple bonus contracts. In contrast to standard adverse selection problems, indirect nonlinear tariffs are strictly dominated.