Unraveling in a repeated moral hazard model with multiple agents

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chandrasekher, Madhav
• 署名单位: Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe
• 刊物名称: THEORETICAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1933-6837
• DOI: 10.3982/TE833
• 发表日期: 2015-01-01
• 页码: 11-49
• 关键词: Repeated games; collusion; COMMUNICATION; statistical testing

摘要

This paper studies an infinite-horizon repeated moral hazard problem where a single principal employs several agents. We assume that the principal cannot observe the agents' effort choices; however, agents can observe each other and can be contractually required to make observation reports to the principal. Observation reports, if truthful, can serve as a monitoring instrument to discipline the agents. However, reports are cheap talk so that it is also possible for agents to collude, i.e., where they shirk, earn rents, and report otherwise to the principal. The main result of the paper constructs a class of collusion-proof contracts with two properties. First, equilibrium payoffs to both the principal and the agents approach their first-best benchmarks as the discount factor tends to unity. These payoff bounds apply to all subgame perfect equilibria in the game induced by the contract. Second, while equilibria themselves depend on the discount factor, the contract that induces these equilibria is independent of the discount factor.