Gaming and strategic opacity in incentive provision

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ederer, Florian; Holden, Richard; Meyer, Margaret
• 署名单位: Yale University; University of New South Wales Sydney; University of Oxford; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
• 刊物名称: RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0741-6261
• DOI: 10.1111/1756-2171.12253
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 819-854
• 关键词: Contracts; INFORMATION; DESIGN; AGENCY

摘要

We study the benefits and costs of opacity (deliberate lack of transparency) of incentive schemes as a strategy to combat gaming by better informed agents. In a two-task moral hazard model in which only the agent knows which task is less costly, the agent has an incentive to focus his effort on the less costly task. Opaque schemes, which make a risk-averse agent uncertain about which task will be more highly rewarded, mitigate such gaming but impose more risk. We identify environments in which opaque schemes not only dominate transparent ones, but also eliminate the costs of the agent's hidden information.