Optimal contracts for research agents

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Shan, Yaping
• 署名单位: University of Adelaide
• 刊物名称: RAND JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0741-6261
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 94-124
• 关键词: Moral hazard; economy firms; performance; incentives; INNOVATION; teams

摘要

We study the agency problem between a firm and its research employees under several scenarios characterized by different Research and Development (R&D) unit setups. In a multiagent dynamic contracting setting, we describe the precise pattern of the optimal contract. We illustrate that the optimal incentive regime is a function of how agents' efforts interact with one another: relative performance evaluation is used when their efforts are substitutes, whereas joint performance evaluation is used when their efforts are complements. The optimal contract pattern provides a theoretical justification for the compensation policies used by firms that rely on R&D.